


head underwater

by loveleee



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: (sort of?), F/M, Friends With Benefits, quarter life crisis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:54:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23438767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveleee/pseuds/loveleee
Summary: “Change is good. Change is how you grow,” she proclaims. “But old things are good, too. History is important.”“You’re a born diplomat, Betty Cooper.” Jughead shoots her a crooked smile that she feels, unexpectedly, all the way down to her toes.(Betty moves back to Riverdale five years after getting out.)
Relationships: Betty Cooper & Reggie Mantle, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, Jughead Jones & Reggie Mantle
Comments: 279
Kudos: 295
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees, 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards — Winners!





	1. one

“You might want to think about getting a new bedspread.”

Alice smooths her hand over the floral comforter. It’s the same one Betty remembers from her childhood – because they are, in fact, standing before that very same full-sized bed, in the room where Betty had spent the first eighteen years of her life.

“The pattern’s faded where the sun’s been shining on it every day,” Alice continues. She pinches a bit of fabric between her fingers as if to say, _see?_

Betty’s first thought is that she won’t be here long enough to care how the bedspread looks. Is pink her favorite color? No. Will it get the job done? Sure.

Her second thought is more sobering: she doesn’t know that for certain. She’s got no job prospects, and no solid plans. She could be here for months. She could be here for years.

God, she hopes she’s not here for _years._

Nonetheless, Betty had come to realize at some point during her teenage years that it was easier for everyone involved to vaguely agree with her mother’s suggestions, and then ignore them, than to combat them outright.

“Yeah, I’ll think about it.” She yawns, stretching her arms over her head. “It’s been a long day. I think I’m just going to unpack a little and then get to bed early.”

“I’ll tell your father to keep the tv down.” Alice leans over and presses a kiss to the top of Betty’s head. “We’re very happy to have you home.”

Deep down, Betty knows that her mother does mean it. But it isn’t enough to erase from her mind the months of passive-aggressive arguments and thinly-veiled disappointment that had all led to this moment. The accusations that Betty just wasn’t trying hard enough. The implication that her parents had wasted their hard-earned money – _retirement_ money – on a degree she’d never put to use.

The comparisons to Polly, who was thriving on every level that Betty was not: gainfully employed, happily engaged, and saving up for a home of her own.

The fact that Betty was, when it came down to it, an utter failure.

She puts away half of a suitcase of clothing before she loses interest, and falls asleep on top of the faded pink duvet.

Betty figures she’ll have a day or two to settle in before she starts her new job at the Register. But it turns out her parents need a _lot_ more help than they’d let on.

She flips through the morning paper at the breakfast table, her grapefruit untouched as typos jump out at her from every page. “What happened to your copy editor?”

“She wouldn’t take a pay cut,” Alice sniffs, filling her travel mug with coffee by the kitchen island. “So we had to let her go.”

“Well, you need _some_ one to proofread. This is embarrassing.”

“That can be your job,” her mother says shortly.

Her parents had agreed to pay her a modest salary, though not one she could survive on if she weren’t already living at home for free. Up until this moment, she’d been a little bitter about that. Now she suspects that if they’d offered her any more, they’d actually have to shut the whole operation down.

Betty folds the paper back up, deflated. She’s not naïve. She’d chosen journalism school knowing that a tough road lay ahead of her. The industry was dying; even the big guns – the Times, the Post – were cutting staff; blah, blah, blah. Everyone in the department joked about it, and it hadn’t taken Betty long to detect the very real current of fear running through their words when they did.

But to see the decay taking root in her own family’s business, passed down through generations…that’s not something she can just ignore. Betty pushes her chair back from the table.

“Are you heading to the office now? I’ll come with you.”

Alice rests a hand on her hip. “I thought you wanted a day to unpack.”

That _was_ what she’d said. But the thought of opening up all those cardboard boxes – placing the books on the bookshelf, the sweaters on the hangers, the out-of-season shoes in the back of the closet – it feels so permanent.

And this? This is not permanent. This is a pit stop.

“I’ve got plenty of time for that.” Betty scoops what’s left of her grapefruit into her mouth. “Give me five minutes.”

A few days later, at lunchtime, her phone buzzes with a text. It’s Archie.

**Are u moving back to rd?**

His dad must have told him about Betty – about the boxes he’d helped move from the back seat of Hal’s station wagon into the house last weekend. Fred had been insistent on pitching in despite the Coopers’ protests.

She hadn’t doubted _his_ sincerity when he had given her a one-armed hug and a warm smile, and said, “It’s nice to see you back, Betty.” She’d known he was thinking of Archie, who was chasing his dreams of stardom across the country in Los Angeles.

 _Just for now_ , she texts back.

**Cool**

**u should hang out w reggie**

**or jug**

Betty raises an eyebrow at her phone. She’d just assumed that she was the only graduate from their class pathetic enough to end up right back where she started, five years later. Even her cousins Cheryl and Jason, who had somehow assumed leadership of the family maple syrup business at the tender age of 21, were running their company from its Canadian headquarters in Montreal, instead of home-sweet-home in Riverdale.

_Oh! I didn’t know they were here._

That’s all she really intends to say, but another text comes in a minute later. **Cool i let them know ur around**

Betty sighs. Archie had always been one of those kids who was everybody’s best bud, from the captain of the football team to the oddball loner from the trailer park. Consequently, he tended to assume the same was true of everyone else.

But Betty had never been _friends_ with either of those guys. Sure, she’d worked on the school newspaper with Jughead, and yes, she’d done shots with Reggie at house parties on the weekends. That didn’t mean she could just hang out with them one-on-one, years later, with almost no contact in between. They were acquaintances – a handful of bodies among many, all orbiting the sun that was Archie Andrews. 

Before she can point that out to Archie, her phone buzzes again, this time with a message from a number she doesn’t recognize, though the area code is local.

**_Hey i heard you were in town, wanna hang?_ **

It must be Jughead, she realizes with a start, because a quick skim through her contacts confirms that Reggie’s number is still saved to her phone.

Betty hesitates. She should probably say yes. It’s a Saturday; she has no plans. If she declines, he might tell Archie, who will want to know why. And although he had contacted her _very_ quickly – strangely quickly? – she’d always liked Jughead enough.

Still. Insofar as she’d allowed herself to imagine what life back in Riverdale would be like, she hadn’t really imagined a _social_ life as part of it. Her hometown wasn’t exactly crawling with early twenty-somethings; it was the sort of place you left and then moved back to when you had a kid or two starting school, and enough cash saved up for a down payment.

_Hey! Sure. Did you have something in mind?_

The answer is clearly yes, because he responds right away: **_White worm @ 8?_**

It takes her a few seconds to register what he’s talking about: the Whyte Wyrm, the old dive bar by the train tracks across town. An odd choice, she thinks, but then again Jughead had grown up on the south side of Riverdale, only attending school on the north side thanks to some fluke in how the school district lines had been redrawn in the ‘90s.

She lets out a slow, calming breath and counts to ten, the way the counselor at Columbia had taught her back in freshman year, when she could barely make it through a week without succumbing to a panic attack.

_See you there._

As is her habit, Alice knocks on the bedroom door and then enters without waiting for Betty to answer. “Oh.” She pauses, taking in the sight of Betty at her vanity table. “Are you going out?”

Betty caps her mascara, meeting her mother’s eyes in the mirror. “Yup.”

“With who?”

“Some friends from high school.”

“What friends from high school?”

Betty resists the urge to roll her eyes. No matter what she says, providing anything short of the name, address and date of birth for said “friends” will not appease Alice Cooper.

“Reggie Mantle.”

She feels guilty for lying about something so silly, but only a little. Her mother had always frowned upon Jughead, whom she’d labeled a “troublemaker” early on, though Betty couldn’t recall a single incident beyond the time he’d accidentally set a trash can on fire while playing with matches in the fourth grade.

“Reggie Mantle.” Alice repeats his name in such a way that Betty immediately tacks on another lie.

“And his girlfriend.”

“Hm.” She picks an invisible piece of lint off of the sleeve of Betty’s white blouse. “Where are you three going?”

“Pop’s.”

“Well, have fun. Don’t stay out too late.”

 _I’m twenty-three_ , she wants to snap, _I’ll stay out however late I want._

Betty plasters on a smile. “Of course not.”

The Whyte Wyrm is sparsely populated for a Saturday evening, though Betty supposes it’s still early yet. She gives the room a quick scan, but none of the worn leather jackets on display appear to belong to her former classmate.

Then a voice draws her attention to the bar. “Betty Cooper. As I live and breathe.”

It’s him, unmistakably, though she knows this not because of his voice, nor his face, both of which are more appealing than she remembers.

No, what clinches it is his beanie: that awful gray beanie he’s been wearing for as long as she’s known him. Day or night, rain or shine, hot or cold – she’s never seen him without it. It’s sitting right atop his head like always, covering up what she’s long suspected to be a pretty nice head of hair.

Jughead nods at her from behind the bar. Betty smiles, waving a little as she walks up and slides onto a stool in front of him.

“Hi, Jughead.”

“Hello, hello.” He pours her a glass of water. “What brings you here?”

It’s an odd question, since he’s the one who invited her to the bar, but he must mean Riverdale in general.

It’s also a question she hasn’t quite figured out how to answer yet.

“I’m…regrouping.” Betty takes a sip of water. “I’m thinking about a career change, or maybe grad school? But I’m here for a little bit to help out my parents at the Register in the meantime.”

Not her best bullshitting, but it sounds better than _I ran out of money, and no one in New York would hire me._

Jughead seems to buy it. “Well, welcome back. Can I get you a drink? Miller Light’s the only thing on tap, but there’s a bottle list around here somewhere…”

“Just a gin and tonic would be great.”

“You got it. Top shelf?” When she hesitates, Jughead smiles. “Just kidding. We’ve got one shelf here and it’s basically on the floor.”

Surprised, Betty laughs. Of all the things she recalls about Jughead Jones, a sense of humor hadn’t made the list. Brooding, sulking, scowling: yes. But joking? Smiling?

(Flirting?)

(No, she decides. Not flirting.)

The drink he makes is pretty good, and she tells him so. Jughead rests his forearms against the edge of the bar, leaning towards her. “Fair warning,” he says, “Order a gin and tonic from any other bartender in this place and you’ll get a glass of liquor with half a lime in it.”

She giggles again, sipping delicately at her drink. Though she doesn’t want to jinx it, so far this night is proceeding much less awkwardly than she’d feared. “I’m surprised to see you working in a…” She pauses, searching for the right word. One that’s less derogatory than _dive_ or _townie_ bar _._

“Biker bar?” Jughead drops his gaze to his wrist, fiddling with the cuff of his flannel shirt. “I kind of grew up in here. My dad was a Southside Serpent, and this was like their HQ, I guess. They’re defunct now,” he adds, glancing back up at Betty. “But the bar lives on.”

“I didn’t know.”

“I take a couple shifts a month. It’s not a bad way to earn a little extra cash.” Jughead straightens up, crossing his arms over his chest. “I can’t say I expected to see you turn up, though. Be honest, did Archie send you here?”

Betty wrinkles her nose in confusion. Either the drink is hitting her a lot faster than she thought, or…

“COOPER!”

Or she’s made a rather embarrassing mistake.

She’s wrapped up in Reggie’s arms before she can even twist around in her seat. “Hi, Reggie,” she mumbles against what she thinks is his left bicep.

Mercifully, he releases her. “Yo. Juggernaut.” Reggie leans across the bar and bumps Jughead’s fist.

Betty gapes at the pair of them. The last time she saw Jughead Jones and Reggie Mantle in the same room, the latter was accusing the former of using his old film camera to snap secret dick pics in the boys’ locker room. (An accusation that was far more damning for Reggie than it was for Jughead, in Betty’s opinion, as it revealed a significant misunderstanding of how film cameras worked.)

“Now I get it.” Jughead is already pouring Reggie a beer from the tap. “You couldn’t have picked a nicer bar for a first date, dude?”

“It’s not a date,” Betty interjects.

“Ouch.” Reggie slaps a hand over his chest. “How are you, Betty? You look amazing.”

“I’m well.” She doesn’t return the compliment, lest he get any ideas, but Reggie looks good, too. For lack of a better word, he looks like Reggie. Fit, confident, smiling Reggie.

“Are you back in town for a visit, or for good, or…?”

Betty swirls the ice around in her glass, unsure what to say. “Um…in between, I guess? What about you?”

“I’m running the car dealership with my dad until he retires and I can take over. R-dale for life, baby.”

“What about you, Jughead?” Betty asks pointedly.

“That remains to be seen.” Jughead shrugs. “No plans to go anywhere anytime soon, though.”

He changes the subject, asking Reggie if he’s been to the new distillery out in Centreville yet, which launches them all into a wide-ranging conversation about how much their hometown has changed since they were all in high school together.

“It’s so much better,” Reggie insists, now halfway through his third beer. “There’s a Whole Foods, and a sushi place…”

Jughead scoffs. “It’s lost all its character. You know what they knocked down the drive-in for?” He looks at Betty. “Luxury condos. Condos full of douchebags.”

Reggie laughs. “Hey, I live in one of those condos.”

“I rest my case.”

Betty smiles. She’s pleasantly tipsy, and relaxed for the first time since she drove past the familiar _Town with Pep!_ sign on the side of the road days ago. This was a good decision, seeing these not-really-old-but-maybe-new friends. She’ll have to thank Archie later.

“Change is good. Change is how you grow,” she proclaims. “But old things are good, too. History is important.”

“You’re a born diplomat, Betty Cooper.” Jughead shoots her a crooked smile that she feels, unexpectedly, all the way down to her toes.

It’s nearing midnight when she declares it’s time to go home. Jughead – the only one of them to remain sober – orders her a car on her phone while Reggie uses the bathroom. When he hands it back to her, his ears are flushed pink.

“I um, I put my number in there. Just in case.”

“Oh. You know, I thought I had it already. But it was Reggie’s! I thought he was you.” She’s not so embarrassed to admit the mix-up, now that she’s several drinks deep. “I had no idea he was coming,” she adds with a giggle.

Jughead looks surprised. “Oh. _Oh._ So…you –”

Betty’s phone vibrates in her hand. “I gotta go, my ride’s here – I’ll see you around?”

She doesn’t hear his answer.

Betty wakes up the next morning with a mild headache and an Instagram notification that she’s been tagged in a new photo: a selfie of herself, Reggie, and Jughead, that she only vaguely remembers taking. She taps the heart in the corner, and then scrolls down to see the comments.

 _CUTE!!!,_ says one from Veronica. Betty likes the comment, too.

In a way, Veronica was the catalyst for the situation Betty finds herself in now. Betty doesn’t _blame_ her for it – that would be, well, delusional – but if Veronica hadn’t accepted a job with a fashion-tech startup in San Francisco at the start of the summer, the odds are high that Betty would still be living on the Lower East Side right now. Still paying $500 per month to share a two-bedroom luxury condo with her best friend, whose seemingly bottomless bank account allowed her to cover the rest of the sky-high Manhattan rent.

Veronica had been wracked with guilt ever since breaking the news of her cross-country move, behaving as though she’d sentenced Betty to the electric chair. One late, drunken night, she’d even offered to keep paying her portion of the rent so that Betty could continue to live there, and Veronica could have a crash pad for business trips back east. But it was one thing to _share_ a living space with her friend, taking on the bulk of the cooking and cleaning responsibilities as a form of recompense. Living completely on the Lodges’ largesse was another.

There’s a private message from Veronica, too, sent to Betty along with the selfie: _Wow lucky girl. They grew up nice…_

Betty studies the photo again. In her opinion, Reggie looks the same way he’s always looked. He’s good-looking, _very_ good-looking, in fact, but bulging muscles were never really her thing.

Jughead is a different story. He has no social media presence that she’s aware of, so she hasn’t spent the last five years watching him grow into himself via the internet the way she has with the rest of their former classmates. His shoulders are broader now. His face has thinned out in a way that makes his nose appear striking, and not merely long.

He’s handsome – a word Betty does not associate with him in her memory.

She sends Veronica a winky face, and then hops in the shower.

It’s a Sunday, so per tradition Betty’s parents drag her to church service, followed by an early lunch at Pop’s. She thinks nothing of it until Pop Tate himself stops by their table to express how delighted he is to see her back in town.

Alice looks between the two of them with surprise. “But wasn’t Betty just here last night?”

Betty freezes, a glass of orange juice halfway to her mouth, but Pop just chuckles. “I had the night off, Alice,” he says easily. “I do take _some_ breaks.”

 _Bless you, Pop Tate,_ Betty thinks. He could always be counted on for a cover story.

The same cannot be said for Jughead. Betty sees him enter the diner as she’s halfway through her egg white omelet, and when they lock eyes, he veers off course from the counter to head for her table.

She swallows her food quickly. “Jughead, hi. Mom, Dad, you remember Jughead?”

“We do,” Alice affirms coolly, as Hal smiles and nods.

“Good morning.” Jughead turns his gaze to Betty, mouth slanted into a smirk. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“I just can’t get enough of Pop’s.” His eyes wrinkle in confusion, and she forges on. “It was nice to run into you last night, when I was here with Reggie and his girlfriend.”

Jughead’s eyes light up with a spark of understanding. “Yes, that _was_ nice. Reggie and his girlfriend. What’s her name again?”

Betty says the first and only name that pops into her mind: “R…egina.”

(She’s going to murder him on the spot the next time they’re alone.)

Jughead covers his mouth with his hand, masterfully passing off what she’s sure is a bark of laughter as a cough. “Reggie and Regina. What are the odds?”

Betty gestures towards the counter, where a takeout bag has appeared next to the cash register. “I think your food’s getting cold.”

“Ah. Right you are.” Jughead raps his knuckles on the table once, twice. “Good to see you Betty, Mrs. Cooper, Mr. Cooper.”

“Take care,” says Alice.

 _I hate you_ , Betty texts him an hour later, ambling down the sidewalk in her running gear. It’s too hot to actually run in the middle of the afternoon, but she figures putting on a show of it will get her mom off her back about eating diner food two days in a row.

**_Hey I played along_ **

**_I didn’t force you to say REGINA_ **

**_(btw, really hoping this is Betty, not sure who else might hate me)_ **

**_…not that I want you to hate me_ **

_It’s Betty_

_You put me on the spot!_

**_You’re right. Sorry_ **

**_I should have provided my own backstory for the fake girlfriend-of-reggie you sprung on me in front of your parents_ **

_Damn straight._

Still smiling, Betty presses play on her music app and jogs halfheartedly for a few blocks, letting her mind wander. Though Riverdale’s downtown had undergone a lot of changes over the last few years, her own neighborhood may as well have been preserved in amber. Even the cars in the driveways look exactly the same, though she suspects the couple living at the corner of Elm and Dogwood upgraded their lawn gnome to a newer model.

There’s another message from Jughead awaiting her by the time she gives up, catching her breath in the shade of a tree next to the bus stop.

**_If you do ever want to get Pop’s I’m always up for it. I practically live there._ **

Betty considers the text. If she didn’t know better, she might think this is Jughead’s very noncommittal way of asking her on a date.

But…she does know better. Maybe. Maybe not? Honestly, she has no idea. He’d never dated anyone in high school, and there had been no indication of a girlfriend – or boyfriend – last night at the bar. Every time Reggie had started to bemoan the difficulties of dating in Riverdale, Jughead had steered them away from the subject.

Jughead’s sexuality is his business, she decides. Regardless of orientation, he’s a fun person to hang out with, and potential friends aren’t exactly beating down her door right now.

She texts him back:

_Good to know._


	2. two

“…and he looked at me and said, _I just had a cigarette_.”

“What’d you say?”

“Nothing. I pretended I had to run to a meeting.” Veronica’s big, expressive eyes widen even more. “None of my friends smoke! I don’t know what it smells like anymore.”

Giggling, Betty leans over to grab her glass of wine from the bedside table. Gossiping with Veronica wasn’t quite the same when there were three thousand miles, multiple time zones, and a so-so internet connection between them, but so far their video chat has been the happiest fifteen minutes she’s had since arriving back in Riverdale two weeks ago.

“Very smooth.”

“Speaking of smooth.” Even through a slightly pixelated screen – even though she’s already crossed the line into tipsy – she can detect the wicked glint in Veronica’s gaze. “Tell me more about these hometown boys you’re spending time with.”

Betty rolls her eyes. She knew this was coming – the only surprise is that it took them this long to get here.

“There’s not much to tell. I haven’t hung out with them since last weekend.”

“How did you even get them to pose for a picture together? I thought Jughead despised Reggie.”

“No no.” Betty shakes her head. “That’s the crazy thing. They’re _friends_ now.”

Veronica gapes into the camera. “How?”

“Beats me. I’m supposed to get lunch with Reggie tomorrow, though.”

He had texted her that morning, saying he had to be downtown near the Register’s offices for a work meeting around noon the next day, and would she wanna hang? Her existing plan was to eat a sad desk lunch while her mother sniped at some poor, unpaid high school intern in the background, so she’d replied in the affirmative. “Maybe I can dig up the backstory that way.”

“Ooh, lunch with _Reggie_.” Veronica grins. “Reggie’s hot.”

Betty hums, noncommittal. “Didn’t you hook up with him once?”

“A few times. He was a little gropey, but…” Her eyes practically glaze over with a faraway look. “Those abs. They were really something.”

Betty wrinkles her nose and takes another generous sip of wine. Better to cut Veronica off before she gets into all the gory details. “Well, we’re only grabbing something from the salad bar at Whole Foods. It’s just friendly. He’s not my type, anyway.”

“I suppose you’ve never had a thing for totally-jacked-but-dumb-as-a-brick.” Veronica raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “What about Jughead?”

Betty’s cheeks warm. _What about Jughead_ , indeed. It’s the question that’s been running circles through her mind ever since she saw him at Pop’s last weekend.

His vague, open non-invitation to hang out at the diner had remained just that – vague and open – and thus far, she’d been too chicken to reach out to him herself. After all, if he _wanted_ to spend time with her again, wouldn’t he have actually asked her to do so?

“I don’t know about Jughead,” she admits, rubbing her thumb along the curve of her wineglass.

Veronica sips from her drink – something clear and fizzy in a champagne flute, so probably a French 75, if Betty had to guess – and settles back in her chair. “What does that mean?”

Betty shrugs. “It means I don’t know about Jughead.” 

Veronica leans a little closer to the camera. “What’s he like now? He looks so different.”

“He’s…I don’t know. He still wears that weird beanie. But he’s kind of cute? I think he grew into his looks. And he’s kind of funny now? He’s still got that whole, like, aggrieved outsider thing going on, he’s just…more chill about it now.” 

Veronica blinks a few times. “Oh. Are you done?”

“Shut up,” Betty groans, stretching out the last word.

“I can wait if you’d like to go on. It seems like you have a lot of thoughts.”

She purses her lips. “Nope.”

“Okay. Well, I’m glad to hear he finally got the fuck over himself, at least.”

Betty frowns. “He hasn’t had an easy life, V.”

Not that Betty had ever been privy to many of the details. But she can still remember the first week of high school, the whispers among their classmates that Jughead Jones’ mom had skipped town over the summer with his little sister in tow, leaving him behind.

And she remembers that months-long stretch during their sophomore year, before they’d started working on the paper together, when Jughead had slept on an inflatable mattress on Archie’s bedroom floor every night.

Archie had never given her a straight answer for why that was, and she’d never directly asked Jughead. He was Archie’s friend, not hers. By the time he joined the Blue and Gold with her, he was living on the Southside again, and asking him about his stint as the Andrews’ houseguest would have been awkward. But whatever reason he’d had for an extended sleepover with the boy next door that winter, she knew that it couldn’t have been good.

“I know, I know.” Veronica brushes off the mild rebuke, her lips curling up into a mischievous smile. “I’m just saying, if you’re going to be crushing on him, he’d better at least have a sense of humor.”

“Stop.” Betty falls back into the mountain of pillows piled against her headboard. “I’m not _crushing_ on him.”

“You’re blushing!”

“It’s the wine.” Betty tips her head back and empties her glass for emphasis. “But even if I was, I don’t know if it would even matter.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s Jughead. He’s not into, like, dating.” She pauses. “You don’t remember him ever actually _liking_ anyone, do you?”

“If Jughead Jones ever had a crush, rest assured I am the last person he would’ve shared it with.” Veronica taps her chin. “I think maybe he went on a date with Ethel Muggs one time.”

Betty cringes. Ethel’s unrequited fondness for Jughead had been an open secret since the early days of middle school, and his outright refusal to ever acknowledge it was one of the things now feeding her own hesitation.

“I don’t think that counts. He was probably coerced.”

“Yeah, probably. But so what? _You_ are not Ethel Muggs.” Now Veronica’s rolling her eyes. “And some people are just late bloomers.”

Betty makes what she likes to think of as her skeptical face, though no one’s ever actually referred to it as such.

“Even if he _is_ a late bloomer, I’m only going to be here for a month or two.” She ignores the uncertain lurch in her stomach as she says it. Sometimes it felt like Veronica was even more disappointed in Betty for leaving the city than Betty was herself. “I don’t want to like…start something…only to end up right where I was with Adam again.”

“What? What are you even talking about? Everything doesn’t have to be some grand romance, B,” Veronica insists. “It’s okay to just hook up with someone you think is cute and funny for a couple of weeks.”

She has a point. Adam was someone whom Betty had loved. Someone whom she spent two years of her life with, whom she had even entertained the possibility of marrying one day, in some far-off, distant future. Jughead is a guy she knows from high school who has really, really nice hands. (And shoulders. And lips.)

Maybe Betty is getting ahead of herself.

“It’s so awkward, though,” she sighs.

She’s had casual sex before – not a lot of it, but enough to know that she doesn’t like it all that much. All of the things that Veronica claimed to find so thrilling about it – the spontaneity, the discovery, the _newness_ – merely exhausted Betty. Without any hope or promise that they’d improve, _together_ , the fumbling and miscommunication one had to endure with a random stranger just seemed…pointless.

Of course, Jughead is not a stranger.

“It’s only awkward if you make it awkward,” Veronica says. “Just be honest about what you want. The rest will follow.”

“Fine. Maybe. I will take your advice into consideration.” Betty giggles; the alcohol is starting to go to her head, just as she’d hoped. Late night chats with Veronica are a lot more fun when both of them are liquored up. “This conversation is completely failing the Bechdel test, by the way. I’m going to go refill my wine, stealthily, _without_ my mother noticing, and when I get back you better be ready to tell me all about San Francisco.”

Veronica grins, saluting the screen with one hand. “Godspeed, Drunk Betty.”

The next day is a lovely, mild May afternoon, and so Betty walks to the Whole Foods to meet Reggie, stopping along the way to examine some of the storefronts as she passes. Almost none of them look familiar. There’s a sushi restaurant with a sleek, metallic interior, just as he’d described at the bar; an Orangetheory gym, questionably situated across the street from a CrossFit studio; and perhaps oddest of all, a shop that appears to sell nothing but high-end pens.

After five years in a real city – _the_ real city, if you ask her – Betty can’t help but feel that it all comes off a little try-hard. But there are people on the sidewalks, patrons in the shops, diners in the restaurants; it’s a far cry from the sleepy summer days she remembers spending at the Register with her parents during breaks from school, when downtown had just as many “For Rent” signs tacked up along Main Street as it did pedestrians. This was what Reggie had meant by _better:_ there was life in Riverdale again, a reason to be there.

_Just not enough to sustain a local newspaper_ , she thinks, kicking at a stray rock on the sidewalk.

Reggie is waiting for her by the front entrance when she arrives. He greets her with a hug, and while it’s less confusing, and less crushing, than the one he’d given her at the Whyte Wyrm, it’s still kind of…weird. One night at a bar and a couple dozen high school parties notwithstanding, she doesn’t really _know_ Reggie. They’re not really friends.

But, she supposes, that’s what they’re getting lunch for.

After paying for their food, they claim an empty picnic table in the small park across the street, sunlight dappling onto their faces through the trees.

“How are you settling in?” Reggie pops a piece of sushi into his mouth. To her bewilderment, he’d bought not one, not two, but three spicy salmon rolls from the sushi counter in addition to a slice of pizza. Maybe his friendship with Jughead had rubbed off in more ways than one.

“Um, pretty good.” Betty spears a piece of broccoli with her fork. “I don’t know if I’d call it settling in, exactly.”

“No?”

“Well, I’m not planning on living here very long.”

“Right.” He inhales two more pieces before asking, “So what is the plan?”

Betty shoves a forkful of tofu and rice into her mouth. “I’m not sure. I’m looking into grad school, or maybe just a career change.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that before. What kind of grad school are you looking at?”

Betty chews her food very, very slowly. It’s not a question she had expected Reggie Mantle, of all people, to ask.

“Well, you know.” She takes a sip of water from her S’well bottle. “A master’s in journalism might make me more attractive to employers. Or maybe business school, or something.”

_Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit._

Reggie perks up at the mention of business school. “Nice. I majored in finance. But my dad didn’t think it was worth getting an MBA since he can show me the ropes before I take over the dealership.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Before he can press for more details she doesn’t have, she says, “Can I ask you something?”

Reggie nods enthusiastically. “Hit me.”

Betty looks him in the eye. “How did you and Jughead become friends? I know you both went to Syracuse, but…”

She trails off. Anyone who had known them both growing up could end that sentence in a hundred different ways, none of them particularly flattering to Reggie.

But the smile he gives her is surprisingly knowing for someone who once knocked himself unconscious doing a keg stand in a kiddie pool. “I figured you might want to hear that story. Thought you’d be too polite to ask outright, though.”

Betty drops her eyes to her lunch. “Well, you don’t have to answer.”

“It’s alright.” Reggie polishes off another few pieces of sushi. “Freshman year I took this women and gender studies class –”

Betty snorts before she can stop herself. Reggie just grins, holding his palms up in the air. “I know what you’re thinking –”

“Oh, no. You couldn’t possibly.”

“It wasn’t to pick up girls! I swear. I just needed it to finish my gen ed requirements and it was the only thing with an opening that semester that met after noon.”

“Sure.”

“It’s true. Anyway.” Reggie takes a huge bite out of his pizza. “I learned all about toxic masculinity and shit, and I realized it explained a lot about the way I acted in high school. I was really driven by fear, you know? And I realized it was pretty fucked up, the way I treated Jughead.”

Betty narrows her eyes a little. “You got all that from an introductory gender studies course?”

“And a couple of therapy sessions,” he concedes. “So anyway, later that semester I saw him in one of the dining halls one day, and I apologized.”

Betty waits for him to continue, but Reggie turns back to his remaining sushi roll, gorging himself happily. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“He just…forgave you?”

“Yeah. I mean, we didn’t start hanging out until a couple years later. But now we’re pretty much the only two chill dudes in Riverdale under 35, so.” Reggie shrugs.

It doesn’t really sound like the Jughead she remembers, who had been so upset when Archie bailed on their road trip the summer before senior year that he didn’t speak to his best friend for two months. (She knows that it had lasted for two months, and not a day less, because Archie had moaned about it every single morning during their drive to school together until Jughead relented and started hanging out with him again.)

But in fairness, she’s also finding it tough to wrap her head around the version of Reggie Mantle who apologized – unprompted – for years of bullying because he finally learned about the patriarchy.

“That is not what I was expecting.”

He shoots her another grin. If she were a different kind of girl – a girl who’s into the _totally-jacked-but-dumb-as-a-brick_ type – she’d probably be melting into a puddle underneath their picnic table right now. “What were you expecting?”

Betty waves her plastic fork in the air, searching for the words. “I don’t know, maybe…you were assigned as roommates and slowly grew to respect one another? Or you got stuck in an elevator together?”

“You’re funny, Coop.” In one smooth motion, Reggie folds what remains of his pizza into his mouth, stacks his now-empty sushi boxes together, and checks his phone. “Shit, I gotta run. Good talk. Same time, same place, next week?”

Betty freezes. She hadn’t realized this was the test run for a recurring event. But it was nice to get out of the office. It was nice to get away from her parents, get some fresh air – and maybe even nice to get to know Reggie a little better.

“Sure,” she tells him. “See you next week.”

Polly calls the house to check in a few days later, as she does every Friday night. Alice insists they all gather around the speakerphone together, like she’s calling from some far-flung, war-torn region with limited telecommunications, and not suburban Michigan.

“How are you settling in, Betty?”

Somehow the question feels even more grating coming from her sister than it did from Reggie. Probably because Polly – the one who focused all her energy on cheerleading and pep rallies; the one who kept weed hidden in a shampoo bottle in her desk; the one who needed weekly tutoring sessions just to pass pre-calc – had floated along through college right into her dream life, working as a pediatric nurse while her handsome, doting, thoroughly Midwestern fiancé, Tim, earned his law degree at the University of Michigan.

Polly is the one who got out of Riverdale, and stayed out.

And they all know it.

Betty forces a smile for her parents, who are watching her expectantly. “It’s not the same without you here, Pol.”

Later, lying in bed, Betty scrolls listlessly through her phone. There are a handful of new texts, all from friends who have scattered about the country, presumably to follow their dreams – Veronica, Archie, a college friend who moved to DC.

Her thumb hovers next to Jughead’s entry, the preview text still displaying their last exchange from a week ago. He’d entered his name into her contacts as _Jughead J_ , which makes her smile. As if she might somehow mistake him with another Jughead.

She types out a new message and reads through it only once before hitting send.

_Can I take you up on that Pop’s offer tomorrow night? I need to eat at least one meal without my parents breathing down my neck this weekend._

She doesn’t expect an answer right away – it’s a Friday night, he’s probably bartending again – but her screen lights up with a reply.

**_Sure, what time?_ **

Eager to get out of the house, Betty arrives at Pop’s a few minutes early, and is pleased to see her favorite booth still sitting open. (Two tables down from the front door, next to the windows; it’s got the clearest view of the woods behind the parking lot, and the best song selection on the tabletop jukebox.) Pop stops by with a worn, familiar, plastic-coated menu and a glass of water. “Just you tonight, Betty?”

Only Pop Tate himself could ask that question and sound neither judgmental nor flat-out nosy. She smiles up at him. “No, I’m meeting Jughead. But could I get a strawberry milkshake?”

“You sure can.” The bell over the door chimes, drawing his gaze away. “Speak of the devil.”

“Who’re you calling a devil?” Jughead greets Pop with a smile and a friendly clap on the back as he maneuvers around him to slide into the booth opposite her. “Hey, Betty.”

“This young lady is having a strawberry milkshake,” Pop says. “And you?”

“The usual.”

“Chocolate, then. Want a menu?”

Jughead moves one hand to his chest. “You insult me, Pop.”

Pop’s shoulders shake in a silent chuckle, and he nods at Betty. “Two milkshakes coming right up. I’ll give you a minute.”

“I don’t really _need_ a menu,” Betty grumbles. She’s been coming here all her life, too – it’s not like the burger selection could have changed that much since she went to college.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” Betty clasps her hands together. “Hi. Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for inviting me.”

“Well, you said you’d be up for it.”

Jughead nods in acknowledgment, but says nothing, letting silence fall over the table.

It stretches on just a beat too long, and Betty ducks her head, pretending to examine the menu for a moment. Something feels different. Banter had flowed much more readily in the dim, dingy lighting of the Whyte Wyrm, with a drink in her hand, and the confidence of believing _he’d_ been the one to invite her there.

Or had she only imagined the easy chemistry she’d felt between them that night? For all the thought she’s given Jughead over the past week, very little of it has involved actual conversation with him.

She sneaks a glance across the table; he’s distracted by something on his phone, so she takes the opportunity to study him. He’s not quite conventionally handsome, not the way Reggie is, or Archie. But she was right when she told Veronica he’d grown into himself.

Whatever the reason – hormones, loneliness, genuine attraction – his face is making her stomach do somersaults in a way she never would have imagined when they were sixteen.

“So how was your week?” she finally asks, like the great conversationalist she is.

Jughead tucks his phone into his pocket – a nice gesture, she thinks, given how many times she’s had to compete with constant pings and notifications for a guy’s attention at dinner. “Can’t complain. How about you?”

She considers. “It was…fine.”

“Did you have a fight with your parents?”

Betty gives him a funny look, and Jughead gestures towards her own phone, which sits facedown on the table. “You said you wanted to get away from them this weekend.”

“Oh.” She huffs out a short laugh. “No, no fighting. It’s just hard being around them so much. It’s already weird living with them again, and then we’re at work together all day. I need some breathing room.” She pauses. “Are you living with your dad?”

Though Jughead had been more than happy to express his many and varied thoughts on the gentrification of Riverdale at the bar last weekend, he hadn’t actually said very much about himself. Betty realizes, abruptly, that she not only doesn’t know where Jughead lives, she doesn’t know what he _does_ all day.

“Ah, no. I live alone. Well,” he digs his phone out of his pocket again, “I live with this little guy.”

Jughead taps on the screen a few times and then turns it towards Betty, displaying a photo of a shaggy sheepdog sitting on a couch. “Aw. He’s so cute. What’s his name?”

“Hot Dog.” She raises an eyebrow, and he smiles sheepishly, tucking the phone back into his jacket. “My dad named him.”

A server arrives with their milkshakes, and takes their order – a grilled cheese for Betty, and another “usual” for Jughead.

“Does literally everyone in here know what you like to eat?” she wonders aloud.

“Not _literally_ , but…a lot of ‘em, yeah.” Jughead fiddles with the straw of his milkshake. “My work’s only a ten minute walk, so I’m here for lunch a lot. And I don’t really like to cook, so…I’m here for dinner a lot, too.”

“Jughead,” she chides. “You’re gonna get scurvy or something if all you eat is hamburgers.”

“Nah. My ‘usual’ includes lots of extra ketchup.”

He flashes her a grin, and she feels it again, that warm little thrill that sparked through her last weekend at the sight of his smile. _God, I want you to fuck me_ , she thinks out of nowhere, and then takes a long, hearty sip of her strawberry shake just to be one hundred percent sure she doesn’t accidentally say that out loud.

Because that’s _not_ what this is about. This is about friendship. It’s about building personal connections outside of her own home. It’s about getting to know someone whom she’d overlooked during their adolescence, someone who is smart and funny and yes, fine, much more good-looking than he’d been as a kid, with a dimple in his cheek when he smiles and long, elegant fingers that she just _knows_ would feel so good slipping under the edge of her –

“Where do you work?” she blurts out, desperate to corral her thoughts back to safer territory.

“The rec center. I’m the administrative assistant.”

Betty frowns, pulling up a mental map in her head. If nothing else, it’s a good distraction. “That’s across town.”

“You’re thinking of the Blossom Center,” he corrects her. “There’s a rec center on the southside, too.”

“I didn’t know that,” she admits. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah, I like it enough.” Jughead shrugs. “It’s not my dream career, but it pays the bills. It’s close enough that I can go home and walk Hot Dog on my break. And it kind of feels like I’m serving the community, which is nice.”

“Jughead Jones, public servant.” Betty smiles. “I never would have guessed.”

“No?” He leans forward a little, resting his arms on the tabletop, one side of his mouth quirking up. “Why not? Besides not actually knowing the rec center exists,” he teases.

Honesty aside, _because I thought you hated people_ feels like the wrong thing to say. “I guess I always thought of you as a writer,” she tells him. “Like one day I’d open the New Yorker and they’d be saying you’d written the next Great American Novel.”

Jughead settles back, an odd, bright look in his eyes. “Who says I won’t? I’m only twenty-three.”

It’s so unexpectedly cocky that Betty laughs. “Someone’s ambitious.”

“Look who’s talking. _I_ always thought I’d open up the New Yorker one day and see your byline on some huge investigation taking down half of Congress.”

She knows he’s only kidding, but his words hit her like a brick to the stomach anyway. She drops her gaze to her half-melted milkshake, touching the tips of her fingers to the water beaded around the bottom of the glass. “I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

“Betty. Hey.” When she lifts her head again, his eyes have gone soft in a way she’s not sure she’s seen before. “Y’know, _you’re_ only twenty-three.”

She gets what he’s saying. She’s young. She has all the time in the world to become a success. Theoretically.

But in reality? If she’s learned anything from her professors, her parents, her peers – it’s that everything rides on jamming your foot in that rapidly closing door as quickly as you can. And every single year that passes brings more and more people clamoring to be one of the few who make it through. More people with the right internships, the right clips, the right connections.

That’s what Jughead doesn’t get.

“I’m sorry.” His forearm moves oddly on the table, as though he’d intended to reach for her hand, and then changed his mind. “I just – you seem like you’re really hard on yourself.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s fine.” She pulls her mouth into a shape she’s pretty sure resembles a smile. “I’m…you’re right. I need to relax a little.”

Jughead frowns. “That’s not what –”

Before he can finish, their meals arrive, and Betty jumps at the chance to steer the conversation elsewhere. It doesn’t take long to get him talking about burger-to-ketchup ratios, and roadside diners, and how badly he misses the unlimited meal plan he had at college, even if the food itself had been uniformly mediocre.

It takes just a little longer to make her forget how close she’d come to spiraling down a black hole of self-doubt right in front of him.

When Pop drops their check off, Jughead slaps his palm down on the bill. “My treat.” He waves off her protests. “Your grilled cheese was like, four dollars.”

“I’ll have to make it up to you somehow.”

She doesn’t _intend_ for it to come out the way it does, which is to say, like a come on. But the deep red flush that creeps up Jughead’s neck is the surest signal she’s received all evening that he might actually, possibly, _maybe_ be interested in her that way, too. 

Betty bites her lower lip.

Jughead clears his throat. “Again…four dollars. Not exactly breaking the bank.”

He avoids her eyes as he says it. For reasons she doesn’t fully understand, it only emboldens her further.

“It’s still early,” she points out. “Would you maybe want to go get a drink at the Whyte Wyrm?”

Jughead squints, tapping his fingers on the table. “I don’t really go there when I’m not working. It’s not my crowd.”

Her heart sinks a little. “Oh.”

“You could come over, though? We can play video games or something.”

_Or something._ The flush has reached his ears now. It’s…strangely charming.

_Oh my god_ , Betty thinks, heart thumping. _Is this actually happening?_

“You can meet Hot Dog,” he adds with a smile.

Betty smiles back, and nods.

“Okay,” she says. “Lead the way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your kind comments and kudos on chapter 1!! I hope you enjoyed this next part, too. 
> 
> The part of Veronica's story that I left out at the beginning is based on the time my coworker walked back into the office and I said "Is something burning?" and he was like "...I just took a smoke break." Thankfully we were friends and I didn't have to run away to a fake meeting like Veronica did, lol.
> 
> As always, I'm on tumblr @ imreallyloveleee - I'd love to hear your thoughts on woke!Reggie, V in the Bay Area, thirsty Betty, the state of journalism in 2020, and more, if you've got em :D


	3. three

The barking starts before Jughead even gets the front door open.

“I promise he won’t bite,” he says, blocking the left side of the doorway with his body so Betty can squeeze through without being dive-bombed by a sheepdog. “He’s just excitable.”

She hangs her handbag on a coat hook beside the door. “No worries.”

Jughead bends forward and snags his finger through Hot Dog’s collar as he nudges the door shut with his foot. “Shush up, Weiner Dog. Be nice to Betty.”

“Weiner Dog?” She crouches down to ruffle the dog’s shaggy neck, and he snuffles against her arm in return.

“That’s one of his nicknames.” Jughead kneels down beside her and scratches Hot Dog’s back. “I got really creative with it.”

“He seems like a very good boy.” Hot Dog takes the compliment as an opportunity to lick her nose; Betty yelps, falling back onto her butt as she jerks away.

Jughead laughs and stands upright, extending his hand to help her up. His fingers are warm around her own as he pulls her to her feet.

It’s the first time they’ve touched all evening, and _fuck_. She wants those hands on her body. A frisson of heat flares through her as she imagines them on her hips, her neck, running up her thighs –

Betty clears her throat, turning away as she pretends to search for something in her purse. Is she being too obvious? She feels, somehow, like she’s being hopelessly obvious and completely opaque all at the same time. But does it even matter? He invited her here for a reason. For _something_.

And there’s a voice in her head that’s saying, fuck it – just _do it_ already. Kiss him. Touch his chest. Drop to your knees and unbutton his pants.

That was what she’d done with the last guy she was with. That guy had loved it.

Of course, the circumstances couldn’t have been more different. _That guy_ had been a friend of a friend whom she’d met at a party; they had both been drunk. She’d woken early the next morning, dressed in last night’s clothes as quietly as she could, and slipped out the front door of his apartment while he slept. He’d texted her – just once, out of what she assumed was some sense of millennial propriety – and she’d never responded.

( _Don’t bother_ , Veronica had scoffed. _He told me he’s moving to Hoboken next month._ )

Jughead is…he’s not that guy. Somehow she knows, on a gut level, that even if it were what _she_ wanted right now – and she’s not certain it is – unbridled aggression is not the right approach to take here.

And maybe she doesn’t know exactly what she wants from this – but she doesn’t want _nothing._ She doesn’t want to lie in Jughead’s bed and pretend she’s asleep until he starts snoring, then make her escape under the cover of night. She doesn’t want to receive a single, obligatory text message two days later telling her that he “had fun.” She doesn’t want to spend the entire summer (fall? winter?) avoiding him, until she finally escapes the town of Riverdale and moves on with her life.

She _likes_ Jughead. She wants to be friends. And she wants to fuck him.

She tells herself for the hundredth time that these goals are not necessarily incompatible.

His voice pulls her from her thoughts. “You want something to drink? I’ve got some beer, some LaCroix, and…water.”

She finds a tube of chapstick at the bottom of her purse, and rubs it over her lips before looking over her shoulder at him. “You drink LaCroix?”

She doesn’t really know why she says it – she knows plenty of men who do, her own father included. It just feels like one of those things high school Jughead would have sneered at. _Bougie water_ , she can almost hear him saying.

“No. It tastes like someone mixed Sprite with bleach and left it out in the sun for three days.” He smiles when she raises an eyebrow. “I just keep it in stock.”

“You keep it for…?” _Girls_ , she doesn’t want to say.

“Guests. Basically just Reggie. The guy loves his pamplemousse.” Jughead eyes his cabinets. “I could make some coffee, if you want.”

Betty shakes her head. The anticipation already has her jittery enough; no need to add caffeine into the mix. “I’ll have a beer. If you are?”

Jughead nods, and moves into the kitchen. Betty takes the moment alone to observe her surroundings. The living room leaves no doubt that a young, single man lives here: empty beige walls, mismatched furniture, a rat’s nest of wires tangled together beneath the tv console. The windows that line the wall behind the sofa are hung with dark curtains that probably haven’t been dusted since the Bush administration.

The kitchen is small, but clean – tidy enough to support Jughead’s claim that he eats most of his meals at the diner. Two chairs sit tucked beneath a table in the corner, next to the door. A Big Mouth Billy Bass prop hangs on the wall above them. It strikes her as out of place.

All of it feels out of place, really, but perhaps that’s just her own biases at work. It had taken her by surprise when Jughead had driven them back to Sunnyside Trailer Park from Pop’s. She’d assumed that he lived in an apartment, like Reggie – maybe in one of the smaller, older buildings on the southside. A trailer seemed like an odd choice. But maybe he liked the familiarity, or simply wanted to be close to his father.

She startles when he touches her elbow, handing her a beer. Their bottlenecks clink together – _cheers_ – and she follows him to sit on the faded orange couch. Hot Dog jumps up onto the cushions and turns in a circle once, twice, before settling between them.

It’s fine, Betty decides, stroking the back of her fingers against the dog’s soft fur. Better to ease into things, have a drink or two first. It’s not even nine o’clock yet, and it’s not like she’s got a curfew to meet. (At least, not an explicitly stated one.)

Someone who’s better at all this would probably take the chance to flirt some more, maybe stoke the tension – but Betty is not that someone. She lets her curiosity get the best of her. “I know you said you didn’t live with your dad,” she says casually. “But does he still live in Sunnyside?”

“Hm? No.” Jughead settles back against the corner of the couch. “This is his place, where I grew up. After we sold the house, I mean.”

That would have been around fifth grade, if she’s remembering right. Jughead had started showing up at Archie’s house more often that summer; in the afternoons she’d peek through the curtains of her window to catch a glimpse of them playing video games together in Archie’s bedroom. The moment one of them turned his head towards her house, she’d fling herself back onto her own bed, pouting, and scrawl out long, emotional diary entries about how mean and stupid the boys were for never inviting her to join them.

At that age, it had never occurred to her that maybe Jughead had a good reason for avoiding his own home, one that had nothing to do with eleven-year-old Betty and her conviction that he was intentionally monopolizing her best friend’s time. Suddenly the bare walls and dusty curtains around them seem a lot sadder.

Betty frowns, trying to connect what little she knows about those days to what little she knows about the present. “So…did he move?”

Jughead is quiet for a moment, almost like he’s weighing something in his head. He takes a long sip of his beer, and then sets it on the coffee table. (No coasters, she notes.)

“My dad’s in prison,” he says.

Betty stills. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that.”

“It’s okay.” Jughead shrugs, flipping one of Hot Dog’s floppy ears up onto his head, then off again. “It’s kind of why I moved back here, actually.”

Betty opens her mouth and then snaps it shut, biting back the question on the tip of her tongue. Though his gaze stays trained on the dog curled up between them, Jughead doesn’t seem upset. Just…thoughtful.

And maybe you can take the girl out of the newsroom, but you can’t take the burning desire to know _more_ out of the girl. “Can I ask what happened?”

Jughead blinks up at her, almost as though he’d forgotten she was there. “It was a drug thing. Remember I told you he was a Serpent?” He waits for her to nod. “He wasn’t just a member. He _led_ the Serpents, and they were moving a lot of cocaine over the border from Canada. The FBI had been watching them for years. He claims he wasn’t directly involved, but he obviously knew it was going on.”

He says it all so matter-of-factly that it takes a second to sink in: he’s more or less just handed her the decoder ring to his entire childhood.

Jughead Jones – the quiet kid who could eat his own weight in burgers, who slept on Archie’s floor for an entire semester of high school, who wrote stirring, passionate op-eds for the Blue and Gold that were at least three times too long to go to print – had been the son of a drug kingpin all along.

Betty feels like she’s just removed a pair of sunglasses she wore for so long that she forgot the real color of the sky. “Oh my god.”

“Yeah. It gets better – he could have struck a deal, but he refused to name names. I think he actually takes pride in it,” he sighs. “Like a captain going down with the ship.”

She almost wants to correct him; it’s not the story itself that’s shocked her. It’s the fact that it’s _his_ story. Her mind whirs with questions. “How long is he going to be in prison for?”

“He was sentenced to ten years, but his lawyer says he’ll be out in six if he behaves himself.” Jughead scoffs. “She was kind of a shitty lawyer, though. Another Serpent.”

“And when you moved back…did you move back for the trial?”

“Well, the lawyer – she asked me to testify as a character witness. Which was just further proof that she didn’t know what she was doing. He was kind of a shitty dad.” He shakes his head. “This was all happening right around graduation, so I didn’t really know what I was doing anyway. I didn’t want to stay in Syracuse. And the trailer’s already paid off, so I knew I’d only have to pay rent for the lot here. It felt like it made sense to stay nearby, and take care of the dog, and try to save up a little money before I figure out what I’m doing next.”

“God. That’s so much to deal with.” Betty rests her cheek against the back of the couch. Her own long, slow backslide into Riverdale – her whole _life_ , and all of its petty failures – is nothing compared to what Jughead’s been through. “I’m so sorry. That must have been so hard.”

“It was. But I had help. Fred Andrews was great, and Pop Tate was great, and I talked to Archie a lot, too. And, weirdly, Reggie.”

Out of nowhere, Jughead laughs. “God, this is depressing. We don’t have to talk about this. Not exactly what you came over for, right?”

Right. _That._

“We don’t…I mean, we don’t _have_ to, if you’re not…in the mood for it anymore.” Truth be told, she’s not sure _she_ is. She kind of just wants to give him a hug.

He shoots her a funny look as he takes a swig of his beer. “I think it’s a good distraction, honestly.”

Betty has always found the opposite to be true – that if there’s something weighing on her mind, it’s nearly impossible to just let it go, and let herself get lost in the physical act of sex. It’s as much a mental experience as a bodily one for her.

But if it works for Jughead, then hey: it works for Jughead.

He sets his beer on the coffee table again and claps his hands together. “So what are you into?”

She gapes at him. For someone who was blushing at the mere suggestion of _something_ not even an hour ago, he’s being awfully frank. “Um. I guess just normal stuff?”

Jughead’s forehead creases. “What’s ‘normal stuff’?”

It’s a fair question. She’s slept with a grand total of five men in her life, and even within that relatively narrow window of experience, she’s found that expectations around sex vary widely. The simplest answer would be that she means _vanilla_. It’s familiar, it’s within her comfort zone – it’s easy (ish) for two people who have never slept together to negotiate.

But what if Jughead thinks that’s boring? She’s not necessarily _opposed_ to trying something more adventurous –

“Do you mean Nintendo? Mario Kart? That kind of thing?”

Oh.

_Oh._

It seems Betty has made another mistake. One that is considerably more embarrassing than getting some numbers switched around in her phone.

“Mario Kart,” she says quickly. “Yes. Normal video games. Like Mario Kart.”

Jughead rubs the back of his neck, glancing between Betty and the tv. “We could watch a movie or something, too. I just got the Criterion Channel…”

She can tell the exact moment that he connects the dots, because his mouth drops open to mirror her own as his eyebrows arch in surprise. “ _Oh._ ”

Betty pulls her legs up onto the sofa, curling an arm around them as she buries her face against her knee.

“Betty Cooper.” There is a long pause. “Did you come over thinking we were gonna…?”

She tilts her head just enough to peer up at him. “Have you never heard of Netflix and chill?”

“Yeah. Of course. But.” Jughead coughs into his fist. “I didn’t say, come Netflix and chill with me.”

“I asked you to get a drink with me –”

“Which can be a very platonic thing to do –”

“— and then you invited me to your _house_. Where you made it clear you live _alone_.”

Jughead drags a hand over his face. She thinks he’s trying to hide a smile. “Well…you seemed like you really didn’t want to go home.”

She lifts her eyes to the ceiling, desperate to look at anything but him; it’s made of an off-white, almost pockmarked material, like something you’d see in an office building.

“That’s true,” she admits. “I didn’t.”

He bursts out laughing, startling Hot Dog, who jumps down to the floor. And then she’s giggling too, slumping against the back of the sofa.

Betty squeezes her eyes shut. “This is very embarrassing.”

She feels the sofa cushion rise and then dip again. When she opens her eyes, he’s closer. Much closer. So close that if she shifted her leg just the slightest bit towards him, their knees would touch. So close she’s finding it a little hard to keep breathing.

“Why?”

“ _Why?_ ” She stares at him. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious,” he says, though the shallow dimple in his cheek suggests otherwise.

Betty watches as his gaze drops to her mouth; she wets her lower lip, almost unconsciously, the waxy chapstick taste faint on her tongue.

Veronica’s words echo in the back of her mind. _Be honest about what you want. The rest will follow._

“Because I came over here thinking we were going to have sex,” she says.

“That’s embarrassing?”

Betty widens her eyes. “Um, yeah. It is when you clearly have no interest.”

His eyes are still pinned to her lips when he says, “I never said that.”

After that, there’s really nothing she can do but lean in and kiss him.

Jughead’s bedroom is as tidy as his kitchen is, though it almost certainly gets more use. Maybe he’s just a neat person, after all.

Betty considers this for only a moment, because then her legs hit the edge of the bed and she’s falling onto her back and all she can think about is how much she wants the weight of his body pressing her down into the mattress right now.

Instead, he takes a step back, and begins to unbutton his shirt.

She takes it as a sign that she should start to remove her own clothes, too, and so she does, tugging her blouse over her head, shimmying out of her jeans. Jughead climbs onto the bed, hovering over her just as she kicks her pants onto the floor, dressed in only his underwear. (Navy blue boxer briefs, she notes, not unlike the million pairs that her ex-boyfriend Adam used to own.)

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” she echoes, and then – because she’s never really been one for much talking during sex – she buries her fingers in his hair and pulls him in for another kiss. (She was right. He has a _great_ head of hair.)

He’s a good kisser, too. She’s not surprised, exactly; but she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the opposite was true. She’s pleased by the discovery now, though, especially as he pulls away from her mouth and moves instead to her neck, sucking gently at her pulse point.

Betty closes her eyes and enjoys the sensation, rocking her hips into his, letting her hands wander over his back as he moves to her collarbone, her sternum, her breasts. He spends a good amount of time nuzzling at her breasts – she takes her bra off before he can fumble awkwardly with the clasp himself – but eventually moves on, continuing his path lower, lower…lower.

Her stomach muscles tense beneath the wet suction of his mouth. Jughead pauses, framed between her legs. He’d removed his beanie after taking off his shirt, a fact she’s now immensely grateful for, as she can’t imagine keeping a straight face if he’d still been wearing it when he asks, “Do you want me to go down on you?”

He sounds…hopeful, almost. But she hesitates.

“Oh…I don’t know.” Betty props herself up on one elbow to better see him in the dim light afforded by his bedside lamp, conscious of the crease it creates in her stomach, just below his chin. “That’s…pretty intimate.”

Jughead’s mouth curls up in a lopsided grin. “We’re both naked. This is already pretty intimate.”

“I know, but…” She smiles a little, shrugs one shoulder. “You don’t have to.”

His fingers play with the edge of her underwear. “I’m happy to. Seriously.”

Betty tries to ignore the prickle of irritation under her skin. Can he not take a hint? “That’s great, but I don’t really want you to.”

For a beat, he looks up at her, and then nods. “Okay.” He presses a kiss to the inside of her thigh, and her toes flex in response, pleasure rippling up through her. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah. That’s…it’s good,” Betty sighs as he trails open-mouthed kisses up her thigh, before pressing his lips once more to the space below her bellybutton, and then crawling back up the bed to lay beside her.

Jughead kisses her again, threading his fingers through her hair. Their noses bump together as he pulls back. “Should I get a condom now?”

Eager to get things back on track, Betty nods. Before she can overthink it, she takes his hand, slipping it beneath her underwear.

Jughead squeezes his eyes shut. “Fuck.”

“I’m ready for you,” she murmurs, and then he’s kissing her again, _hard_ , while his fingers move lightly against her. She gasps against his mouth, grabbing his wrist when the sensation becomes too much.

“Get the condom,” she orders.

He complies, rolling onto his other side to reach into the drawer of his bedside table. He pulls out a strip of three condoms, and she can’t stop herself from wondering how many he started with. Has Jughead been in a relationship at all during these past five years, or has he only brought home casual hook-ups? Maybe he’s done both. There’s still so much she doesn’t know. That it’s not really her _business_ to know.

Still – she wants to.

Thankfully he takes no notice of her active inner monologue. “You want me on top?” he asks, rolling the condom on.

Betty bites her lower lip, watching him, and makes a decision. “No.”

She tugs her underwear off and straddles him in one swift motion, sinking down onto him, pressing her palms against his chest. Jughead groans, his hands finding her hips, fingers pressing in hard.

“Jesus, Betty. Give a guy a warning.”

Betty laughs, the sound fading into a moan as he rocks up into her. She closes her eyes. It feels so _good_ , the stretch of him inside her, just like she’d imagined. This was such a good idea. She’ll have to congratulate herself later.

Jughead presses his thumb to her clit, and she yelps, relaxing into it as he eases up on the pressure. “You like that?” he murmurs, making slow, deliberate circles. “Tell me what you like.”

“That,” she sighs, “I like that.”

He comes before her – pretty much an inevitability, she’s found – but he still manages to get her off using his hand, which comes as a welcome surprise. Most of the guys she’s been with had sort of given up once their own orgasm sapped them of their energy.

Moving slowly, as though he’s in a daze, Jughead slips into his briefs and leaves to dispose of the condom in the bathroom. The second he disappears through the doorway, Betty seizes what may be her only chance to skip right past her least favorite part of casual sex: trying to get dressed without giving the other person an eyeful. 

Jughead looks almost disappointed when he returns, stopping in the doorway to watch her zip up her jeans. “Oh,” he says. “Did you…are you going home?”

Betty looks over her shoulder at the alarm clock on his bedside table. It’s only ten o’clock. She doesn’t particularly want to go home. It also doesn’t sound like _he_ wants her to go home.

That’s new.

“I could hang out,” she says.

“I do have Mario Kart.” Jughead steps into the room, and pulls a fresh t-shirt from the top drawer of his dresser. “But just to be super clear, I _am_ actually asking you to play Mario Kart. Not go another round in bed.”

Betty giggles. “Shut up.”

Tugging the shirt over his head, he clears his throat. “Also. Uh. To be even _more_ clear, I’m not necessarily opposed to that, either.”

“Noted.” Betty swipes his beanie off of the dresser, dropping it on his head as she passes. “I call Yoshi.”

A little more than an hour later, they’re two laps into an especially contentious race on Koopa Beach when without warning, Jughead hits the pause button. “Hey. Can I tell you something?”

Betty nods, willing her expression to remain neutral. She really, really hopes he isn’t about to confess to having a girlfriend, or worse, an STD. “Sure.”

“You have to keep it a secret.”

Her pulse quickens. “Okay.”

Jughead exhales a long breath. “I think Reggie likes you.”

She watches his face, waiting for it to split into another teasing grin, but he seems serious. “I know,” she says. “We’re sort of friends now.”

“No, like…he _likes_ you. He told me he was thinking about asking you out.”

Betty frowns, thinking back to their lunch in the park. Reggie had been mildly flirty, but no flirtier than his baseline. Then again, Reggie’s baseline was significantly flirtier than most. And if the last few hours spent with Jughead are any indication, she’s not very good at reading the intentions of the men of Riverdale.

“Well, I’m not interested in Reggie that way,” she says.

“I figured. Otherwise I wouldn’t have…you know.” There’s a flush creeping up Jughead’s neck, and she can’t help but be charmed by it. “I feel bad, though.”

“You should feel bad. You’re a terrible friend, Jughead Jones.” She bumps her elbow against his arm, just in case it’s not obvious that she’s joking.

“To be clear, I know you’re not like, some prize we get to divvy up.” Jughead starts the game again, swearing under his breath when she immediately knocks him out with a red tortoiseshell. “I’ve just, um…never really been in this position before.”

The implication is distracting enough that she gets too close to the edge of the bridge, and goes careening over the side into the ocean. “You mean like…you’re a virgin?”

“What? No. I meant like – the guy who gets the girl. For lack of a less sexist term.”

“Oh.”

“Jesus.” Jughead hits a banana peel, and his character goes spinning off the road. Betty’s starting to think this race just might be some kind of metaphor for the conversation they’re having. “Was it really _that_ mediocre?”

“No.” She leans into him as she takes a tight turn, their shoulders pressing together for a moment. “It was very nice, actually.”

“Careful, I’m not sure my head can contain such an ego boost.”

“I think that’s pretty darn good for two people who have never slept together before,” Betty argues. “Sex doesn’t get _really_ great until you know what the other person wants.”

Jughead glances at her – a grave tactical mistake, because he ends up crashing into a giant crab that’s skittering across the roadway. “You can’t just _know_ what another person wants.”

“Maybe not all the time,” she concedes. “But you can know what they like. And then do that for them.” _Like how I know you like it when I pull your hair_ , she thinks smugly. The sound he’d made when she did that had been memorable.

“Did I make it weird?” he says suddenly. “When I wanted to go down on you? I’m sorry if that was weird.”

Her face grows hot. “No,” she says honestly. At the time, she hadn’t found it weird, just…surprising. And there’s a part of her that wishes she had been confident enough – vulnerable enough – to just go with it.

_Maybe next time._ Her heart skips a beat at the thought. Will there be a next time? Back in his bedroom, it had sounded like he wanted there to be. But maybe he’d only been joking.

“Okay.” Jughead sounds relieved. “It just used to be the only way my ex could come, so.”

Betty hopes he doesn’t see the way her eyes widen at his admission. So there was an ex. An ex who probably wouldn’t be thrilled to hear that Jughead was sharing details of his sex life with her.

“No, I get it,” she says. “For the record, I do like it. I just…didn’t want it right then.”

They play in silence for another few beats, until Jughead clears his throat. “I probably shouldn’t have told you about Reggie. But I guess I thought you should know. Especially if, uh. You wanted to do this again.”

Betty leans forward, focusing intently on the screen, and it pays off when she soars across the finish line in first place. She drops her controller with a whoop.

“Do what? Kick your ass at Mario Kart?” She grins. “I’m definitely doing that again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> miscommunication, amirite? but I guess it worked out for them. :)
> 
> I would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter! was the sex appropriately awkward but still good enough that they'd want to go for it again? (i hope so, because that is what i was going for, lol.) also: is Jughead a terrible friend? I think in this case, he's not a _great_ one, but it's forgivable. 
> 
> coming up: more sex. more Reggie. more info about this ex of Jughead's. (but no love triangles! that is not going to happen.)
> 
> thank you everyone for sticking with this fic! <3


	4. four

The thing about pretty good sex, Betty thinks, is that it makes you want _more_.

She thinks about that – _more_ – all of the next morning. She thinks about it as she’s nestled between her parents in the church pews at Sunday service, then across from them in a booth at Pop’s for their usual brunch.

She thinks about it while sitting at her desk at the Register the following day, eyes glazing over as she types up a recap of the latest school board meeting.

She thinks about it in her bed at night, her hair fanned out across the pillow, fingers skimming lightly over her stomach, dipping beneath the edge of her underwear.

Her night with Jughead had ended without much fanfare. A yawn, a stretch, a final victory in Bowser’s Castle; a declaration that it was getting late. For one fleeting, awkward moment she’d considered giving him a hug, but decided against it, and then waved goodnight as she headed out to her car. He had waved back. Neither of them had suggested making any specific plans.

But Betty had driven away with a good feeling. A feeling like this would be more than a one-time thing. A feeling like more orgasms, _partnered_ orgasms, were in her future.

Now the only question was _when_?

She doesn’t want to seem overeager, or desperate, or clingy. And since she’d been the one to put sex on the table the first time, she figures the ball is in his court.

So she waits.

It’s not until Betty is walking through Riverdale’s downtown a few days later, halfway to Whole Foods for her standing weekly lunch date, that she realizes she and Jughead had failed to discuss one somewhat relevant subject after their evening of sex and video games:

What to tell Reggie.

Logically, she recognizes that there is no imperative to tell Reggie anything at all. Jughead is not her boyfriend. They’re not dating. Reggie is not a close friend of hers; there is no reason he needs to know any details whatsoever about her sex life.

But he is Jughead’s close friend. Maybe his _best_ friend. Maybe it’s totally normal for them to swap stories about their latest hookup. Maybe it’s not, but maybe Jughead had given in to his misplaced feelings of guilt and already confessed that he’d slept with Reggie’s (alleged) crush.

She has just enough time to send off a harried text – _Hey did u tell reggie anything abt this wknd?_ – before the man himself is strolling up to her outside the entrance of the grocery store, his arms outstretched for a hug.

It’s less awkward than the last one, but only a little.

They take their lunch to the park again – gyoza and miso soup for Betty, and an entire rotisserie chicken for Reggie. He straddles the bench on his side of the picnic table, a move that strikes her as both extremely odd and extremely Reggie.

“How you been, Coop?” he asks, tearing into the chicken with both hands.

Betty searches his gaze for any hint of an ulterior motive, but his smile is as wide and guileless as ever. She shrugs. “Hanging in there.”

They talk about work, and the weather, and what they’ve been watching on Netflix lately. ( _Unsolved Mysteries_ for Betty, and a new reality show about hot moms on an island for Reggie. Some things, even a crash course in gender studies can’t change.)

Betty finds herself relaxing, and feeling pretty sure that Jughead had gotten it all wrong to begin with, until Reggie clears his throat and says, “So I’ve been thinking.”

She freezes mid-bite. In her experience, this is not a phrase commonly used by guys like Reggie. Not unless they’re about to try to impress you.

As he pauses, she swallows her last bit of food and asks, “What about?”

“About this distillery out in Seaside – Jug told me about it. I thought maybe we could go check it out. Supposed to have killer cocktails.”

He cocks his head slightly, leveling her with a toothy grin that would probably have Veronica crawling across the picnic table right now if she were the one sitting there instead of Betty.

She is ninety-nine percent sure she knows what he’s suggesting – but she’d thought the same thing about Jughead this weekend, and she’d been way off the mark.

“You, me, and Jughead?” she asks.

“You and me.” Reggie’s smile relaxes into something more genuine. “I think we’d have fun together. We could hit up this tapas place that’s down the block first for dinner, if you’re into that. It’s got a nice view.”

Betty drags her spoon along the bottom of her empty soup cup, considering her words carefully. She can still remember, with a turn of her stomach, the word he’d shouted after Cheryl Blossom right in the middle of the high school cafeteria when she’d turned down his invitation to the junior prom years ago. Present-day Reggie seems like he’s evolved into someone who can probably handle rejection with more grace than his teenage self. But she’s been burned out of nowhere by a man’s paper-thin ego before, and she’s not about to light a match like that again unless she has to.

“I do think we would have fun,” she says. “As friends.”

Reggie winces, though his smile is unwavering.

“I really like being your friend,” she continues. “I just – I don’t see us that way. And I’m not looking to date anyone while I’m in Riverdale.”

He nods, looking down at his hands as he wipes the chicken grease off with a napkin. “No worries. Message received.” Reggie holds his fist out across the picnic table. It takes her longer than it probably should to realize she’s supposed to bump it back.

“I always had a little bit of a thing for the ponytail back in high school,” he admits. “I had to give it a shot, right?”

Betty ducks her head, laughing a little with relief as she twirls said ponytail around her finger.

By the time she’s heading back to the office, her shoulders feel lighter, though her belly remains full. Reggie’s strikeout had seemed to roll right off his back, and the rest of their lunch together had been perfectly pleasant, unencumbered by any hurt feelings or bitterness.

After all, people change. Look at Reggie. Look at Jughead.

_Look at me_ , she thinks, waving to her mother as she passes through the main office into the back room where her work station is. Voted “Most Likely to Win a Pulitzer” by her classmates at Riverdale High, yet here she is five years later, sitting at the same desk where her parents used to leave her with a coloring book and crayons when they had to get some work done on a weekend.

Betty glances around the little room to confirm no one is looking, and opens up the bookmark she has saved on her computer to a listserv that aggregates listings for media jobs. There’s nothing new since she checked it this morning. Nothing that interests her, anyway. She closes the tab.

She still can’t pinpoint why she feels secretive about the fact that she spends so much of her downtime at the Register scrolling listlessly through job postings. It’s not as though her parents ever intended to employ their own daughter long-term; they _want_ her to find a better job, a real job she can use to support herself.

It’s just…it’s easier to tell them that she’s too wrapped up in her work for the Register to actively job hunt than it is to put into words the hopeless, sinking feeling in her chest that stops her every time she comes across another ad for a position she could apply for, but knows she’ll never get.

Something buzzes beneath her desk, next to her foot. Betty bends down and pulls her phone out of her purse, perking up when she sees Jughead has finally replied.

**_No, why?_ **

Betty hesitates before typing back, _I had lunch with him today_

_So just wondering_

_I didn’t say anything tho_

Jughead answers with a thumbs up.

She starts to put her phone back into her bag, but the little texting bubbles appear at the bottom of her screen. She watches as they disappear, then reappear, back and forth, back and forth. 

Finally the phone vibrates again.

**_Any interest in mario kart and chilling tonight?_ **

Betty’s heart skips a beat. She is very much interested in that.

But she’s also just realized that there’s another very important subject she and Jughead have failed to discuss.

… _Still failing,_ she thinks, lying naked in his bed with him that night.

She’d intended to bring it up as soon as she arrived, she truly had. But then Hot Dog had ambushed her the moment she stepped through the door, and then Jughead had handed her a cocktail he’d been experimenting with before his next shift at the bar, and then they’d settled onto the sofa and talked and giggled over the increasingly ridiculous series of shirtless selfies that had popped up on Archie’s Instagram stories last night, and then – suddenly – they were kissing. And stumbling to the bedroom. And tearing one another’s clothes off.

Stopping in the middle of all that to say, _By the way, I’m not looking for anything serious_ – well, it really would have killed the mood.

So now she’s here. Sated, slightly sweaty, and quite possibly lying next to a man who thinks he’s one step closer to making Betty Cooper his girlfriend.

It doesn’t help matters that unlike last time, Jughead had simply wrapped the used condom in a tissue and dropped it onto his bedside table, rather than leave the room to dispose of it. She thought she’d at least have a few seconds to collect her thoughts, and her clothes, before having this conversation.

Jughead yawns, scratching at his chest with one hand. He turns his head to look at her. “You doin’ okay?”

“I’m good,” Betty replies, though the stiff line of her body beneath the bedsheets probably suggests otherwise. The cocktail he’d made had left her a little more giggly and loose than normal, if not actually drunk, but by now any liquid courage has worn off. She turns towards him slightly, trying to relax, and he turns too, propping himself up on one elbow.

“You sure?” His forehead creases in a small frown as he reaches out to tuck a stray lock of hair back from her face. Betty’s stomach dips when his fingers brush her temple. “You…you’re satisfied, and all?”

Her eyes widen. “You couldn’t tell?”

She’d felt briefly embarrassed about how loud her moans sounded in the little room, until she remembered they were in a trailer. He didn’t have any neighbors who could hear them through the other side of the wall.

Jughead shrugs a little. “I know…well, I’ve _heard_ sometimes women fake it.”

The back of her neck prickles with irritation. Jughead may be a good guy, but he’s still a _guy_.

“I don’t do that.” Nor does she know any actual, real-world women who fake their orgasms, but that is another conversation for another day.

Betty swallows. “There was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Jughead flops down onto his pillow, his cheek resting on his bicep. His face looks kind of smushed and cute that way, and it’s going to make it harder to get out what she has to say next, so she lets her gaze drop to the safer territory of his shoulder.

“What is it?” he prompts.

“I probably should have said something sooner. Like, before we…did this.” She glances up to meet his eyes again; he’s watching her steadily, but his expression is blank.

“Okay?”

“I just want to be friends.” The words fall from her mouth in a rush. “I really like you, as a friend.And I really like doing – _this_ – with you. But I’m not looking for a boyfriend right now.”

Jughead opens his mouth, but she barrels on. “I mean, I don’t even know where I’m going to _be_ a month from now. I might be back in the city by then, and – you know, I’ve tried long-distance before, and it didn’t work out. But it’s not – it has nothing to do with _you_ , personally.”

“Betty, I –”

“I just thought I should say that.”

She purses her lips.

_Stop. Talking._

Jughead’s face remains inscrutable. “Okay. Can I – is that everything?”

Betty nods.

“Look, full disclosure, I broke up with my girlfriend about three weeks before you moved back to town,” he says. “I’m not looking to jump into another relationship, either.”

Betty blinks in surprise. For whatever reason, she’d just assumed that the ex he’d mentioned was someone from his college days. But if he’d only broken up with her six weeks ago, that meant she was probably local.

(If he’d only broken up with her six weeks ago, did that make Betty a rebound?)

(No, she reminds herself. A rebound is a relationship. This is not a relationship. He _literally_ just said that.

_You_ literally just said that.)

“Christ.” Jughead laughs, sounding relieved as he rubs a hand over his face. “I thought you were going to tell me you had a boyfriend back in New York, or something.”

“No, not at all. Not for over a year.” She wrinkles her nose. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“No, it’s fine.” Jughead meets her eyes again. “Is this why you were worried about Reggie earlier?”

“Well, I didn’t know if maybe you guys talked about this sort of thing?”

“Oh, sure. I give Reggie a call every time I have sex.”

She swats his arm, unable to hide her grin. “You know what I meant.”

“I do. But I don’t kiss and tell,” Jughead assures her.

Her smile fades a little. Neither does she – with the glaring exception of Veronica, who had listened with rapt attention while Betty gave her a PG-13 summary of their tryst over video chat the other night.

Does Veronica even count, though? She lives three entire time zones away. It’s not like Jughead’s going to awkwardly run into her while he’s buying condoms at the drugstore.

“I mean…unless you _want_ to tell Reggie,” he says, clearly misreading the reason for her silence.

“No.” She shakes her head. “Not that I want to keep secrets or anything, I just don’t think it’s his business. Right?”

“Right. I think we’re on the same page.”

“Me too.” Betty nods. “Great.”

Jughead smiles, too, and she finally feels some of the tension melt from her shoulders. That had been…easier than she’d expected. But why had she expected anything else? It wasn’t like Jughead had _done_ anything to suggest he wanted to date her. As usual, she’d jumped right to the wrong conclusion.

“So.”

Jughead edges a little closer, his fingers toying with the edge of the bed sheet that’s pulled up over her breasts. Betty’s breath catches in her throat as his knuckles brush against her skin.

“Hm?”

“Since neither of us wants me to be your boyfriend, let me phrase this as unromantically as possible.” He shifts his gaze from her lips to her eyes. “Do you wanna bone again?”

Betty shakes her head as she bursts into laughter, rolling onto her back to put some space between them. “ _No._ Not when you say it like that.”

Jughead laughs, too, but moves closer still, one hand slipping beneath her neck to nudge her face back towards him. “Okay, okay. What about – knocking boots? Or um, porking? Boinking? Is any of this doing it for you?”

“Ew, you’re so _gross_ –”

“But –”

“Stop,” she giggles, and then he’s kissing her again. Betty succumbs without protest, her fingers weaving through his messy hair, legs parting to let him in.

His skin feels so _good_ , warm and bare against her own.

The sex is slower this time. She trails her fingers down his chest as he rocks into her, and lets her eyes follow. She hadn’t been in the right mindset to fully appreciate his body the other night, too swept up in the fact that she was _actually fucking_ the person she’d been daydreaming about fucking for an entire week.

But tonight, she’s realized that she likes his body – likes the moles speckled across his skin, likes the way his muscles move under her touch. She likes how it fits with hers, filling in her empty spaces.

His breathing grows more labored, and Jughead ducks his head to rest against her shoulder, his lips just barely brushing against her collarbone. He stays like that, breath hot on her neck, and as he thrusts into her steadily Betty’s mind begins to wander.

He’d been all over her less than an hour ago, touching her thighs, sucking at her breasts, running his hands through her hair like he couldn’t get enough. The sex they’re having now is…nice. But nowhere near as passionate.

_Is he bored? Is this…boring?_

A memory surfaces – his moan, their first time together, when she’d unintentionally tugged his hair in a moment of passion. Just the thought of it now ignites a tiny spark in her belly. Without a second thought, Betty weaves her fingers through his wavy, dark locks, and _pulls_.

“OW.”

Jughead’s head snaps up, his hips stilling their motion. Betty’s face floods with heat.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t the greatest move.

“What the hell? That hurt,” Jughead mutters, rubbing at his scalp with one hand.

“I’m so sorry.” She covers her face with her hands, peeking through her fingers. “Oh my god. I don’t – I thought you liked that.”

“What, having my scalp ripped out?” He doesn’t sound angry, so she lets her hands fall away. Jughead is looking down at her, his expression mostly amused, and maybe a little bit annoyed. “Just – ask me first, okay?”

“Okay.” Betty bites her lower lip, an attempt to hold back the hysterical feeling suddenly bubbling in her chest. “I’m _really_ sorry.”

“It’s fine. You didn’t actually give me a bald spot. I think.” Jughead snorts, and then plants his hands on either side of her, pressing himself into her slowly, like he’s asking permission to continue. She tilts her hips up, pulling her knees in around his waist, meeting his shallow thrusts. She’s honestly kind of impressed that he’s stayed hard through all…that.

“Do you still…?”

“Yeah,” she breathes. Looking up at him, she has the strangest urge to just grab him by the face and pull him down for a kiss, but this time she restrains herself. Instead she asks him, “Can you kiss me?”

He answers her with the firm press of his lips against hers, and a little moan escapes the back of her throat as she deepens the kiss, her tongue brushing against his. He sinks into her fully, deeper, dropping down onto his forearms, their chests touching as they move together.

This is what was missing, she thinks. This – connection.

She’s still sensitive from before, and when she slips her hand between them to circle her clit it doesn’t take long to bring herself to the edge. Her orgasm seems to spur him on. Jughead snaps his hips into her faster, harder, squeezing his eyes shut when he comes, his whole body seizing in its moment of release.

Again, Jughead makes no move to leave the bed when they’re finished, settling onto his back beside her. This time, she doesn’t mind as much. Betty closes her eyes and breathes in slowly, letting herself relax.

She must have fallen asleep, because the next time she opens her eyes, Jughead is laying atop the covers beside her, dressed in a pair of boxers, face awash in the glow of his phone.

Betty sits up against the headboard, remembering at the last second to pull the sheets up to shield her chest from view. “What time is it?”

“Ten thirty.”

She groans, leaning over the edge of the bed to retrieve her bra from the floor. “I told my parents I was seeing a movie,” she grumbles. “I should get going.”

“What are you doing this weekend?”

Absolutely nothing, followed by church with Hal and Alice _._ Maybe she really does need to take up a hobby. “I don’t know. Why?”

“There’s this party…” Jughead trails off, frowning as he taps at something on his phone. “It’s in Centreville. I think me and Reggie are gonna go, if you want to come.”

Betty angles her back towards him as she snaps the clasp of her bra into place. “I didn’t know you go to parties.” Her memories of high school ragers are not quite crystal clear, fueled as they were by jello shots and cheap bottles of sparkling wine. But she can’t recall Jughead in any of them.

“I’m full of surprises.”

“I’ll let you know.” Betty stands up, shimmying back into the t-shirt dress she’d worn to come over.

Finally, Jughead sets his phone down in his lap. “So. This was fun.”

There’s a hint of a question in the way he says it. Biting her lower lip, she nods. “It was.”

“Should we just…” Jughead smiles, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry, I guess I don’t know how this works. I haven’t done the whole, like…casual sex buddy thing before.”

“Me neither,” she says quickly.

His fingers tap a nervous pattern on the back of his cell phone case. “To be – um, totally transparent – I would like to, uh, keep hanging out like this. If that’s what you want.”

Betty shifts her weigh on her feet. She feels just a little sore in her upper thighs, in the very best way. “I would like that, too.”

The plain relief on his face is almost boyish. “I guess we can just…text? For next time? Does that work for you?”

“Yeah.” Betty nods. “Texting totally works. Or email…carrier pigeon…whatever.”

Jughead laughs. “Okay. Cool.”

He gazes up at her expectantly, but what it is that he expects, she doesn’t know.

“Cool,” she echoes.

She takes the silence that follows as her cue to leave. As she enters the living room Hot Dog lifts his head from where he’s curled up on the sofa, tail wagging. She scratches him behind the ears before bending down to slip her shoes back on, but it’s only when she turns around to grab her purse that she realizes Jughead has pulled on a t-shirt and followed her to the door.

“I’m sorry I didn’t really deliver on the Mario Kart part,” he says.

Betty glances over her shoulder at the tv. “Maybe we should do that first next time. Winner gets to be on top.”

“Or bottom.” At her look, he grins. “Depends on my mood.”

She smiles, too, playing with the strap of her bag between her fingers. His eyes keep dropping to her mouth – he’s not even being subtle about it – and part of her wishes he’d just back her up against the arm of the sofa and push her dress up and make her come again, using his own fingers this time.

Betty squeezes her thighs together. So _this_ is what it’s like to have straight-up sexual chemistry with someone.

Clearing his throat, Jughead steps back from the door, giving her space. “The party’s on Saturday,” he says. “I’ll probably drive, so…just let me know.”

“I will.”

Betty hitches her bag up on her shoulder, unsure what to do next. Hug him? Thank him? Is there a way to do that that makes it clear she’s just being polite, and not actually thanking him for the sex?

Jughead also seems paralyzed by some kind of internal debate, but he breaks the impasse first, leaning forward to press a dry kiss to her cheek. “Get home safe.”

“Thanks. You too.”

Betty flushes, and nearly trips over her own feet as she heads down the front stairs to where she’s parked.

God. If they’re going to keep doing this on the regular, they’d better figure out a way to make this part less painfully awkward.

“You’re in an _unusually_ good mood tonight.” Veronica waggles her finger at the computer screen. “Did something happen?”

Betty wiggles her eyebrows before taking a sip of her wine. After driving home, she’d poured herself a hefty glass of the half-empty Chardonnay her parents had left in the fridge, and texted Veronica on her way up the stairs to her bedroom, hoping she hadn’t headed out to the bars quite yet. Betty still hasn’t quite broken herself of the habit of wanting to curl up and debrief with her best friend after a date. Or after…whatever it is she’s currently doing with Jughead.

“Nothing specific. But I saw Jughead again tonight.”

“Oooh.” Veronica’s offscreen now – Betty had caught her just as she began getting ready for a night out with some new coworkers – but some sort of garment covered in black sequins sails past the webcam. “What’s happening there?”

“We are officially _not_ official,” Betty declares.

Veronica’s head pops back into view. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you. I’ve never had a fuck buddy before.” Betty shimmies her shoulders with glee. “It feels so… _adult_ to say that.”

“You are adorable.” Sitting back down where Betty can see her, Veronica rests her hand over her heart. “But you and Jughead aren’t fuck buddies. You’re friends with benefits.”

“Same difference.”

“Absolutely not.” Leaning forward, Veronica unscrews a wand of mascara and begins to coat her eyelashes, presumably using her own Zoom window as a de facto mirror. “In a fuck buddy relationship, the fucking takes primacy. It’s your classic booty call situation. You go over, and you get down to business, and that’s that. You don’t hang around after to play Donkey Kong for three hours.”

“Mario Kart,” Betty mutters. “We didn’t even play it this time.”

“Whatever. As you’ve said many times, you actually like Jughead, as a friend. That means you’re friends…” She trails off, gesturing for Betty to continue.

“With benefits.” Betty rolls her eyes. “That sounds…that sounds like we officially registered with HR or something.”

Veronica laughs. “It sort of _is_ like that, though, right? Did you guys lay down your ground rules yet?”

“What? No.” Betty snorts, and takes another swig of wine. Her glass is already looking a little empty. She should’ve just brought the whole bottle up here.

“ _Betty_.” Veronica leans in closer to the camera. “Listen to me now. Seriously. You _must_ set some boundaries if you want this to work. And sooner, not later.”

Betty waves a dismissive hand. “I think you’re really overthinking it. We’re on the same page.” Jughead had said it himself.

“So you’re agreed on frequency?” Veronica demands.

_Frequency?_ They’d spaced it out a few days between the first and second time, and Jughead hadn’t seemed especially eager to see her again before the party on Saturday, so…yeah. They’d agreed on frequency.

“Twice a week,” she says confidently.

Veronica does not appear convinced. “What about sleeping over?”

Betty imagines her mother’s reaction if she ever showed up at the Register wearing yesterday’s clothes. Or got caught sneaking back into the house before breakfast time. No thank you. Not worth the risk.

“No sleepovers.”

“Are you allowed to sleep with other people?”

“There _are_ no other people,” Betty groans, laying back against her collection of pillows. “We’re in _Riverdale_. Why are you being so negative all of a sudden? You encouraged me to go for it.”

Veronica’s tone softens. “B, I’m just looking out for you. I _fully_ support you getting your groove on, but this is a really easy way to get hurt if you’re not upfront about what you want. And I know that’s not always your strong suit.”

Betty narrows her eyes. “What does _that_ mean?”

“You’re not always honest, Betty.” Veronica shrugs. “Sometimes you just tell people what they want to hear.”

Her mood effectively soured, Betty sits back up. Her head spins briefly; she squeezes her eyes shut, and waits for it to pass.

“Betty? B.” Veronica is frowning at the screen. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I drank too much.” Betty waves her empty wine glass at the screen. “I have to go, okay? Have fun.”

She shuts her laptop before Veronica can reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If writing this fic has taught me anything, it's that writing just-okay sex is _hard_. My instinct is always to try and make it sexier. Not that I always _succeed_ at making things sexier - just, trying to make it feel "meh" feels so WRONG. Please, assure me in the comments that their second go-round where she pulls his hair was sufficiently awkward with poor communication, LOL. 
> 
> I'm SO touched by how positively people have responded to this story - thank you!! So happy you're enjoying it - I hope you liked this chapter and are still up for seeing what's next. <3


	5. five

“Any bites?”

Alice’s long, manicured nails click as she drums her fingertips along the edge of Betty’s desk. She raises an eyebrow, and Betty pushes back a little in her seat, a tight feeling welling in her chest.

“No. I told you, I’ve been too busy to apply to much.”

In truth, most of her Friday afternoon has been occupied by a group text between herself, Reggie, Jughead, and Archie, in which the latter had enlisted their help in fine-tuning some song lyrics after his agent told him to seek out more opportunities for collaboration. Betty is pretty sure he’d meant collaboration with other local artists, and not Archie’s high school friends who live on the other side of the country. But it was entertaining to scroll through the chain as Jughead suggested lyrics very obviously plagiarized from old Bruce Springsteen albums, and Reggie attempted to find a word that rhymed with “circus.”

“Nobody posts anything good on Fridays, anyway,” Betty murmurs, scanning the open tabs on her monitor just in case there’s any visible evidence she’s been goofing around.

Her mother’s eyes soften, but only slightly. “I meant from potential sponsors. Where’s your list?”

Right. _That_. Chastened, Betty pulls up the spreadsheet her mother had sent her that morning with a list of former advertising partners whom she was supposed to chat up on the phone. _Just be glad I’m not making you do the cold calls_ , Alice had said.

But given the reception she’s encountered so far, the list may as well have been frozen in a block of ice. Betty had made it through five uncomfortable conversations – one of which revealed that the listed point of contact had passed away more than two years ago – before setting the project aside for another day.

Even as her defensive hackles rise, a pang of guilt twists in Betty’s stomach. Newspapers depend on ad revenue. _This_ newspaper – her family’s livelihood – depends on ad revenue.

She scrolls down a few rows, clicking on a name she’d highlighted in yellow. “This guy Bernard Shelton – he died. Did you know that?”

Alice scoffs. “Of course I knew that. Didn’t you ask for his wife?”

“ _No_.” Betty looks up at her mother in disbelief. “I have no idea who these people are, Mom.”

“Honestly, Elizabeth. You act as though you weren’t born and raised here your entire life. The Sheltons own the hardware store on Hickory Street. You know that.”

“I did _not_ know that,” she mutters. She can picture the storefront, kind of, but she’s pretty sure she’s never even been inside the hardware store, let alone kept up with its owners. Sometimes she wonders if her mother forgets it was a child she raised in her house for eighteen years, and not a fully-formed, albeit miniature, adult.

Alice sighs – the deep, disappointed sigh that Betty usually associates with her father, not herself. “Mark off anyone you spoke with already and send it back to me,” she orders. “I’ll make calls this weekend. In the meantime, tomorrow’s lifestyle section is ready for you to proof. Oh, and I’ll need you lock up the office today.”

Betty lifts her head in surprise. They usually close the Register a little early on Fridays, all three of the Coopers piling into Hal’s station wagon for the drive home. Sometimes, if Alice is in a good mood, they’ll even pick up milkshakes-to-go from Pop’s on the way.

“Why?”

“Your father and I have a meeting.” Alice points a stern finger at Betty’s screen. “Send me that list.”

“It’s so ridiculous.” Betty huffs, letting her head clunk gently against the car window. “Like, how was I supposed to know the guy who ran the hardware store died _two years ago_?”

Part of her recognizes that Jughead and Reggie probably grew tired of her complaining about twenty minutes ago, but are too nice to say so. The other part – the part that had thrown back two shots of vodka with Reggie at his condo, where he’d insisted they gather to pre-game – doesn’t really care.

“I knew,” Jughead says offhandedly. “I think my dad told me when it happened.”

“Mr. Shelton was the best,” Reggie pipes up. “He used to give me a lollipop every time I came into the store with my dad. Yo, turn left up here.”

He hovers over the cup holder, his shoulders braced between the two front seats as Jughead shifts into the left lane. He’s been sitting like that for nearly the entire drive to Centreville, reminding Betty of a dog with its head lolling out the window.

“It’s a small town, Betty.” Jughead sounds almost apologetic. “People keep tabs on each other.”

“It’s that yellow house,” Reggie says abruptly. He points straight ahead at said house, as though the dozen or so people spilling out onto the front lawn with red solo cups clutched in their hands don’t give it away.

She tries to brush it off, but Jughead’s words buzz at the back of her mind like a mosquito as they cruise past the house in search of a parking spot. Of course she knows it’s a small town – she grew up here just like they did. Maybe she just had more interesting things to focus on than the who’s who of the local business community.

Inside, the party is not unlike the ones Betty used to attend now and then in New York, save for the presence of a keg in the kitchen – no one wanted to haul 150 pounds of cheap beer up the stairs to a fourth floor walk-up. If she closes her eyes, breathes in the faint scent of weed, and lets the sound of drunken chatter backed by a thumping bassline wash over her, she could almost believe she’s back in the city again.

She sticks close to Jughead at first, leaning against the kitchen island beside him as Reggie peels off with a cup of beer, slinging his arm around a tall, thin girl whose dark hair falls down her back in a long fishtail braid.

“Whose house is this?”

Jughead shrugs. “Some guy Reggie knows.”

Betty scans the room, half-hoping she’ll spot a familiar face, though she’d never really had any friends in Centreville other than a few girls she met one summer at tennis camp. She doesn’t see any of them. She’s not even sure she’d recognize them if she did.

It’s a strange sensation. Back in high school, everyone knew Betty Cooper. At the parties Veronica took her to in New York, she never knew anyone, but neither did anyone else, and that was half the fun of it.

Here, she just feels out of place.

“I didn’t think you liked parties,” she says.

“I didn’t, in high school.” Meeting her eyes, he shrugs again. “You don’t really have a choice at ‘Cuse.”

“Do you know any of these people?”

Jughead takes a sip of his beer. “Yeah, I know some people.” His mouth slants into a smile as he looks at her sideways. “You want me to introduce you?”

After she tops off her beer, he leads her to a cluster of partygoers gathered in the den. She only catches a few of their names, and Jughead never explains how he knows any of them, but a girl with a nose ring and tightly coiled curls named Val tells Betty she likes her shoes, and soon they’re exchanging numbers and giggling together over how creepily accurate their targeted Instagram ads can be. She doesn’t even realize that Jughead has wandered away from the group until Val excuses herself to the bathroom.

Neither Jughead nor Reggie is anywhere in sight. Actively searching for them would probably seem a little pathetic, so Betty perches on the arm of a weathered green sofa, and pulls out her phone. There’s one unread text, from Veronica.

Betty rolls her eyes.

The past few days had brought a flood of messages from her best friend, following the exact same pattern they always fell into whenever they had a spat: constant, profuse apologies for wrongdoing, interspersed with links to articles explaining why Veronica was in fact correct, despite being so very sorry about it. This time Betty had been directed to blog posts with titles like “13 Friends With Benefits Rules Everyone Should Know” and “10 Sex Buddy Mistakes I Made That You Shouldn’t,” all of which she had defiantly ignored.

The latest text is the one she’s been waiting for: the one that pretends like the last thirty never happened, and they can just go back to being best friends again. It always works.

**_Can we hang? My plans cancelled so it’s just me and a bottle of bordeaux tonite_ **

_I’m @ a party_ , Betty texts back. _Maybe when i get home?_

**_OOOOH_ **

**_Party w who?_ **

Betty hesitates. She’s not up for another lecture, but it’s not like there’s any point in lying.

_Guess who_

Veronica sends back three zipped-mouth emojis. Betty laughs out loud.

**_No comment. Go have fun, call me if u want when u get home_ **

**_If u get home_ **

**_BUT NOT TOO MUCH FUN_ **

**_I love you_ **

Betty sends her a heart.

“What are you smiling at, Cooper?”

The sound of Reggie’s voice drags her gaze away from her phone. “Have you met Munroe?” he continues, slapping the shoulder of the man beside him. Munroe – who is possibly the only human being she’s ever seen in real life who appears to be even more jacked than Reggie himself – extends his hand.

“Nice to meet you,” he says. “Cooper…?”

“Betty and me went to high school together.” Reggie sounds boisterous, and she wonders how much he’s had to drink already. Or whether he’s partaken of any other substances to complement his drink.

Betty smiles up at Munroe. “Are you from around here?”

“Nah, I’m from Buffalo. I moved here last year for a job in Greendale.” He elbows Reggie in the arm. “I manage the CrossFit studio where Reg works out.”

Betty considers asking Reggie why he drives all the way out to Greendale to exercise when there are already two boutique gyms occupying a single block in downtown Riverdale, but he’s already drifted across the room towards a pair of girls who _might_ be identical twins. That’s fine. She probably doesn’t want to know the answer, anyway.

She makes what is seeming more and more like the usual small talk around here with Munroe – _Riverdale’s so different than when we were in high school; Greendale actually has this really cool brewery with a rooftop deck_ – until Betty feels a warm hand squeeze her shoulder.

“Hey.” Jughead nods at Munroe, who nods back. So they must already know each other. 

“Doin’ okay?” He says this just to her, his hand still resting on her shoulder. Betty glances up at Munroe before she turns back to Jughead and nods.

“Yeah. Fun party.”

“You need another drink?”

Betty shows him her cup, which is still half-full. “No, I’m good.”

“I think they’re looking for more people to play beer pong in the backyard, if you’re into that.”

She hesitates. Maybe Jughead has changed his tune about parties in general – but there’s no way he’s become a beer pong aficionado in the last five years. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he was acting just the tiniest bit possessive right now.

She glances back at Munroe again, who is watching their exchange with a hint of amusement.

She _does_ know better – and Jughead is probably just drunk. “I’m kind of in the middle of a conversation,” she says, and takes a sip of her lukewarm beer.

Jughead blinks, a look she can’t quite place crossing his features, and then rolls his shoulders back slightly, like he’s correcting his posture. “Right. Sorry.”

She watches as he walks away without another word.

“I didn’t know you and Jughead were…”

Betty snaps her gaze back to Munroe, praying the lights are too low for him to see the way her cheeks flush with heat. “We’re just friends.”

Munroe raises an eyebrow. “That’s what I was gonna say.”

“Well, we were friends in high school, too.” Flustered, she takes another long sip of her drink. “Sorry, I’m just…that was kind of weird.”

“Jug’s a weird dude. I think I saw his ex here, so maybe he’s extra weird tonight,” Munroe offers.

Betty freezes. The ex. She’s here. At _this_ party. Why hadn’t he told her that? Did he know she’d be here? Is that why he’d wanted to come in the first place?

Is this why he’d invited her to come, and why he’d wanted to draw her away to the backyard? To make this other woman jealous?

Betty’s chest is nearly bursting with curiosity, but she tries to sound as casual as humanly possible when she asks him, “Are they, like…you know, is there bad blood between them, or something?”

On the rare occasions that Jughead had mentioned his ex-girlfriend, Betty hadn’t detected any bitterness from him. Then again, all he’s really told Betty about her is that she enjoys cunnilingus. And that _probably_ had nothing to do with the breakup.

Munroe laughs. “I have no idea. I’m not into other people’s drama. But hey, look – if you’re open to it, I would love to grab a drink with you sometime.”

He segues into it so smoothly that for a second Betty doesn’t even register that he’s asking her out.

“Sure, that sounds…oh. Um.” Betty purses her lips as she stares up at him. “I’m not really dating right now?”

He raises an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

She wrinkles her nose in apology. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Fair enough.” He smiles. “But if you change your mind, hit up my boy Reggie for my number, alright?”

Of course, that’s not an option, given what she’s already told Reggie about her intentions re: dating in Riverdale. But Munroe is cute, and smart, and nice. Is there any actual harm in grabbing a drink together? It’s not like it has to go any further than that.

Besides, this… _thing_ with Jughead might already be heading straight for its dead end. For all she knows, he’s in a dark corner with his former lover right now, begging her to take him back.

“Actually, here.” Betty stands up and grabs Munroe’s phone right out of his hand, noting with surprise that it opens to the home screen right away. “You should really put a fingerprint lock on this,” she mutters, typing _Hey betty this is munroe_ into a text she sends to herself.

“It was nice to meet you,” she tells him, placing his phone back in his open palm, and then she heads back into the kitchen, on the lookout for Jughead.

She doesn’t find him – not before she bumps into Val again, who ropes her into another few rounds of tequila shots in the dining room.

 _Whatever_ , she thinks, squeezing her eyes shut as the liquor burns down her throat. _Jughead can wait._

Val suggests they join in on the game of Kings being played at the end of the table, but Betty demurs, opting to watch from the sidelines instead. Eventually she feels a familiar pressure building in her bladder region, and wanders off to find a toilet. There’s a line of at least six people trailing away from the bathroom down the hall from the kitchen, so she decides to try her luck upstairs.

There’s still a line, but it’s just one person – a girl, probably about Betty’s age, with shoulder-length white-blonde hair pulled back from her face with a thick black headband. Her short-sleeved, high-necked dress is also black, along with her tights, her shiny leather shoes, and even the beaded earrings dangling from her earlobes. Rather than looking hopelessly goth, the overall effect is kind of…cutesy. Betty could never pull it off, but whoever this girl is, it’s working for her.

“I like your outfit,” Betty blurts out.

The girl looks up from her phone in surprise. “Thank you.” She smiles.

Encouraged, Betty smiles back. She’s already made one new friend at this party – why not another? “I’m Betty.”

“I’m Sabrina.”

Sabrina returns her attention to her phone. Betty casts her gaze around the hallway, but it’s devoid of anything or anyone that might prod the conversation along.

“I really like your shoes, especially,” Betty says. She doesn’t, really – they look like the Mary Janes her mother had forced her to wear until middle school – but if the compliment had worked for Val, maybe it’ll work for her.

“Oh.” Sabrina looks down at her feet, nudging one toe against the carpet. “Thanks.”

“Where’d you get them?”

“Just Zappos, I think.”

Getting nowhere, Betty decides to switch gears. “Did you go to Centreville?”

It’s lame, she realizes, to ask about high school. They’re adults. But her brain feels slippery right now, sliding from thought to thought without finding solid footing on any given one.

“Um, no. I went to Greendale.” Sabrina’s eyes keep flitting from her phone to Betty to the bathroom door. Maybe chatting her up wasn’t such a great idea, after all. “You?”

“Nope. Riverdale.”

Finally, interest flickers in Sabrina’s big, brown eyes. “Riverdale? What year did you graduate?”

“2015.”

Sabrina appears to do some quick mental math. “Did you know –”

The bathroom door swings open behind them. A guy and a girl stumble out together, a visible hickey blooming on the girl’s neck, and whatever Sabrina had been about to ask her is instantly forgotten. “Ew, seriously? There are like three bedrooms _right there_.”

Sabrina shakes her head at Betty, as if to say _can you believe these two?_ , and then disappears into the bathroom.

Betty slumps back against the wall, watching the drunken couple as they make their way down the hallway, trying without success to find an empty room. The third and final doorknob they shake opens without protest, and they slip inside the room, the sound of their giggling cut off as the door shuts.

She lets her eyes drift shut. She’s been one half of that couple before – punch-drunk, unable to keep their hands off one another. Even now, with the buzz of tequila just beginning to wear off, she knows it’s not Adam she misses so much as that feeling. The feeling of belonging with someone – of knowing there is someone in the crowd to anchor you, should you need them.

By the time she turns back to the bathroom, it’s empty and dark, the door half-open. Sabrina’s gone.

When she’s finished using the toilet and washing her hands, Betty hops up onto the counter and opens up Instagram.

She no longer follows his account, but she only has to type the letter _a_ into the search bar and Adam’s profile pops up. She clicks on his Stories icon and watches two photos from the night before slide by. One is of a cocktail, the name of some bar tagged in the corner. The other is him at the bar with his friend Eric, whom they’d both known in college, and two women she doesn’t recognize. Probably their girlfriends.

Her thumb rests on the screen, holding the second photo in place.

Adam had been one year older than Betty, so when he’d graduated at the end of her junior year and moved to Chicago, they’d decided to give long distance a go. She realizes now that it had been a mistake. Their dynamic, which had felt so lighthearted and fun in their shared bubble of New York City, curdled into something heavy and sour when stretched to encompass another time zone.

She knows now, without a doubt, that she doesn’t want Adam back. She just wants the feeling he’d given her back – and to know that when she finds a connection like that again, it won’t be slowly, agonizingly pulled apart right in front of her, like a stale piece of saltwater taffy.

A knock at the door interrupts her maudlin thoughts. She jumps to her feet, stuffing her phone back into her purse. “Just a second.”

“Betty?”

Though it’s muffled by the door and the low, thumping bass of the music in the background, she recognizes the voice as Jughead’s. She opens the door and blinks up at him. “Hey.”

His brow knits in concern. “You okay? Val said you went looking for a bathroom and disappeared.”

A yawn overcomes her, and she slaps her hand over her mouth, riding it out. “’m fine.”

He doesn’t appear convinced, but he doesn’t press her on it. “I was thinking about heading out.”

Betty peeks at her phone again, surprised to find it’s already past midnight. “Okay. Should we find Reggie?”

“Nah, he’s good.” Jughead clears his throat. “He’s, ah, found a bed for the night, so to speak.”

“Ooh.” Betty wiggles her eyebrows as she steps past him to the staircase. “Who’s the lucky girl?”

“Lucky guy,” Jughead corrects her, and Betty almost stumbles down the first step.

Jughead reacts quickly, one hand on her waist, the other on her upper arm before she can say a word. “Careful.”

“Reggie’s bi?”

“I don’t know how he feels about labels, but – yeah. I think he’s figuring it out.”

Jughead keeps his hand firm against the small of her back as they descend the stairs. Once at the bottom, Betty heads for the front door, but Jughead gently tugs her back by the wrist.

He cups her elbow and pulls her aside. For one heart-stopping moment she thinks he’s about to lean down and kiss her, right in the middle of the party – but then a guy in neon green board shorts jostles into her side, beer slopping over the rim of his solo cup, and she realizes he’s just trying to move her away from the crowd.

Jughead leans in. “You sure you’re okay to leave? You don’t want to drink some water first?”

Betty shakes her head. Her pit stop in the bathroom was long enough that she’s moved well past the drunken stage and on to mostly-sober-but-sleepy. “We can go.”

Jughead turns on the radio once they’re in the car. It’s the same classic rock station her dad always listens to in his car, and for a few minutes they drive along the empty suburban streets in comfortable silence as Phil Collins echoes from the speakers.

When they glide past the _Town with Pep!_ sign, Jughead drums his thumbs against the wheel. “I probably should have asked earlier – are we heading to your place?” He glances at her. “Or do you want to come over?”

She looks at the clock on the dashboard. Its glowing green numbers read just after 1 a.m.

“I think I should head home,” Betty sighs. “I’ve got to be up bright and early for church in the morning.”

“Okay.” Jughead pauses for a moment, studying the side mirror as he shifts into the left lane. “You don’t have to answer this if it’s too personal. But are you, like…religious?”

Though she doesn’t think it’s too personal of a question for someone who’s seen her naked to ask, she mulls over it for a few seconds before answering. “Not really,” she says. “I go to church because my parents make me go.”

“They _make_ you go,” Jughead echoes.

“No, they – they don’t force me or anything,” she clarifies. “It just makes them happy if I go.”

He meets her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Even though you don’t believe in it?”

Betty frowns. “I didn’t say that.”

“You said you’re not religious.”

“Yeah, but…” She tugs at her seatbelt, loosening it so she can turn towards him more. “It’s not all or nothing.”

Jughead glances at her again before turning the volume down a few notches on the radio. “Okay, so, tell me more about that,” he prompts her.

Betty hesitates, narrowing her eyes slightly. She’s had enough pointless arguments about religion, feminism, and a million other sensitive subjects with men insistent on playing devil’s advocate to last her a lifetime. If Jughead’s about to try and convince her that moral nihilism is the world’s only logical belief system, she hopes he does so with the understanding that she will never have sex with him again.

“I just mean…I don’t necessarily believe what the Bible says. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in anything. And I don’t mind sitting through church service once a week if it means my parents aren’t gonna be passive aggressive about it every single other day of my life. They already think they’ve totally failed at raising me, so.”

She stops there, watching him intently, waiting for the rebuttal that usually follows when she allows herself to be drawn into one of these conversations. _If God exists, how do you explain genocide, blah, blah, blah._

But Jughead surprises her, and nods, tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel again, this time in a rhythm that more or less matches up with the music softly playing from the speakers.

“That makes sense,” he says.

“It does?” she blurts out.

His mouth quirks up at the side. “Uh. Yes?”

Betty shrugs, relaxing as she slumps back against the headrest. “Most guys who ask me that just want to tell me why I’m stupid for thinking God might exist.”

He shakes his head a little. “I don’t think you’re stupid. I guess I’m just…my parents didn’t really have expectations of me, you know? So it’s interesting to me that yours want to see you going through the motions, even if it’s maybe not one hundred percent genuine.”

Betty opens her mouth to respond – it’s not exactly a kind thing to say about her parents – but finds she doesn’t really have anything to say. He’s not wrong.

“Or maybe I’m just fishing for a really good reason why you don’t want to come home with me tonight,” he adds, a hint of teasing in his voice.

Betty flushes, but keeps her gaze turned towards him. “I want to,” she admits. “I just can’t.”

“I know. I’m joking.” There’s an unmistakable fondness in his tone; she believes him.

Jughead turns the radio back up, and they drive on.

Betty lets the side of her head rest against the window. He still hasn’t mentioned anything about his ex being at the party tonight, and she doesn’t know how to broach it with him, or whether she should at all.

She knows what Veronica would say: just ask him. On any other night, maybe she would. But on this night, right now, she can’t shake the feeling that she might not like his answer.

She taps on her window as they approach an empty strip mall. “Pull in here. To the right.”

Jughead shoots her a look before he complies, turning in to the parking lot. There’s a 24-hour CVS at the other end of the lot, but the part they’re stopped in is empty and dark.

He nods towards the store behind them. “You need something?”

“Uh…yeah, kinda.” Unbuckling her seatbelt, Betty bites her lower lip and dips her chin as she turns towards him. “Turn off the car.”

It’s not until Betty’s literally straddling his lap that he seems to catch on to her intentions. His legs are so long that his seat is already pushed back far from the steering wheel, giving her room to settle in, ducking her head slightly so she won’t bump it against the roof.

“Oh,” he says faintly.

Betty plants a brief kiss on his mouth, fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. “Do you keep a condom in your wallet?”

He swallows, nods. “Always prepared.”

“Such an Adventure Scout.” She kisses him again, grinding against him as her tongue slips against his. His mouth still has the slightest aftertaste of beer, though she knows he’s sober.

“Jesus, Betty.” His protest is half-hearted; his hands are already sliding up her thighs and under her skirt, fingers pressing into her ass. She can feel him growing hard beneath her. “A cop’s gonna see us. Kevin’s _dad_ might see us.”

She smiles, nosing against his jawline. “Kevin’s dad is the sheriff. He’s not stuck on overnight patrol duty.”

He grunts, bucking up against her. “Fair enough.”

Betty pulls back and bites her lip in concentration as she wriggles out of her underwear, tossing it onto the passenger’s seat. It takes some tricky maneuvering, but eventually Jughead manages to tug his jeans and boxers down past his knees before rolling the condom on. She links her arms around his neck, a satisfied sound rising up from the base of her throat as she sinks down onto him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he breathes against her chest. Rocking slowly in his lap, she rolls her shoulders back to let him slip the straps of her dress off, and pull the fabric down beneath her breasts. He dips his head and laves his tongue over her nipple before he sucks it into his mouth, teeth grazing the sensitive skin.

Betty buries her fingers in his hair and lets her knees spread further to the sides, taking him in deeper, gasping as he rolls her other nipple between his fingers. “Fuck, Jug.”

His hands slip around to her back, pressing her closer against him. “You’re so fucking hot.”

His voice is low and rough in a way she hasn’t really heard before. Without warning he shifts his hips, pumping up into her at a different angle, and she moans, dropping her head to his shoulder as she starts to move faster. She can feel a fine sheen of sweat beginning to form on her forehead as their bodies move together, her thighs straining under the effort. Something about the way Jughead is driving up into her right now is just hitting the _exact_ right spot.

His hands slide down to her ribcage, nudging her back from him slightly, giving him a better view of her breasts as she bounces in his lap. “Fuck, baby,” he mumbles, before leaning forward to mouth at her nipple. Betty whimpers, threading her fingers through his hair.

When she comes a few minutes later it’s like a shockwave bolting through her. Her limbs clench so tight around him she wouldn’t be surprised if he struggled to breathe. But she feels him pulse inside her only a few seconds later, groaning against her collarbone as he comes.

“Wow,” he mutters on an exhale.

She huffs a laugh against his shoulder. “Yeah.”

He’s still inside of her as he helps her slip the straps of her dress back up over her shoulders with careful fingers. “So did you need a sin to confess tomorrow morning, or what?”

She laughs for real this time. He laughs, too, and it’s so warm and intimate that she’s overcome with an unbearable urge to bury her nose in his hair, cup his cheeks in her hands, press kisses anywhere she can reach.

She resists. That’s not what friends do – not even friends who just fucked in the front seat of a car.

Besides – it’ll pass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my apologies for the gap between updates. i've been...*waves hand vaguely at the pandemic, US election, etc, etc*
> 
> if you're still reading: thank you!!! i really hope you enjoyed this chapter. Betty's world is starting to open up a little more, meeting new people and such, but her feelings are also getting more complicated...it's gonna be a lot of fun to explore. 
> 
> also, this fic won the "Tropefest" award in the 7th round of the Bughead fic awards - HUGE thank you to anyone who nominated and voted for it! I'm truly touched. <3
> 
> I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts in the comments, if you're so inclined! <3

**Author's Note:**

> I probably shouldn't be posting this yet, because I don't quite know where I'm going with it, but you know what? That's kind of my thing. And the world sucks right now, but reading fic has been a big bright spot for me, and it's not like this story has been doing anyone any good just sitting on my hard drive for the last six months. So here it is!
> 
> I hope you enjoy it, I hope you're intrigued, and I hope you'll leave a comment. Stay safe everyone! <3


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